


Starless Eyes Remain

by heyshalina



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Ben Hargreeves-centric, Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Ghost Ben Hargreeves, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Ben Hargreeves, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Child Abuse, Past Drug Addiction, Possession, Superpowers, Time Travel, the horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27691150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyshalina/pseuds/heyshalina
Summary: Ben has at least a dozen wars warring inside of himself at any given time, and only one of them resides in his chest.He sits in his room and reads about violence, so that the world doesn’t have to see him inflict it. He’ll stay here, reading about other peoples’ lives, until the day he dies.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Everyone, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46





	Starless Eyes Remain

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a character study for y'all hold on tight
> 
> I'm really interested in Ben's character - have been since he was first introduced on the show. And while I love Ben, I've noticed in the fandom he's kind of been reduced to either Klaus' sidekick or just an angel that can do no wrong. Let's be clear. No one in this show is immune to being their own particular brand of asshole.
> 
> Loads of Klaus and Five in here as well, for all of you that care. All the other siblings get their time too. 
> 
> Content warnings for drug use, hand-to-hand violence, blood and gore, child abuse, and major character death (guess who). Let me know if I've missed anything and I'll add it right away.
> 
> Title comes from It's Not a Fashion Statement It's a Deathwish by My Chemical Romance.

**“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark?**

**It would be like sleep without dreams.”**

**_– Werner Hertzog_ **

.

Ben never really planned on sticking around this long. Or at all.

He’s not sure how, having grown up with Klaus and six other freaks spitting in the face of the laws of nature, but he always imagined that death would be a hard end. That only the people who had revenge plots or lost lovers remained to haunt the earth. He always thought that maybe, if there was an afterlife, it would be like dreaming – scattered visions and sensations, piecing together pictures of life for fleeting moments. Beyond that, quiet. Darkness, like a deep sleep. Nothing too far away from what life was, just a continuation.

Well. He got at least that last part right.

He flexes his hands, looking down at his fingertips. They always look solid to him, until he tries to grab something. Until he forgets again and runs through the whole cycle of confusion-anger-sadness-pain. It brings a sense of not-nausea, the world teetering around him in some form of not-vertigo. When he first died, he would sometimes wander away and walk down to the movie theater, standing in the back and watching film after film – but then he would see the patrons eating popcorn and drinking slushies, and he would be painstakingly reminded that no matter how much he craved those things, he wasn’t hungry anymore.

Ben remembers how it feels, to be hungry. To have a need and fulfill it.

“Go to sleep, Klaus,” he sighs. Klaus blinks blearily at him, a frown set to his lips. It’s worse than all the times he would pout at him, deep in the trenches of his own high. Now when Klaus looks at him like this, he means it.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Something turns inside his chest with the distrust laden in Klaus’ words. He groans and rises, running his hands through his hair. Klaus simply watches him, fumbling in his jacket pocket for a lighter. It falls on the crumpled bedspread, but he snatches it up quickly between his fingers. Ben frowns. Klaus raises a cigarette to his lips, his motions deliberate. They both have a way of knowing how to turn a mundane motion into a slap in the face.

“I’m not going to possess you,” Ben says. Promises. He forces himself to mean it, stuffs down the memory of the earth under his bare feet, the wind kissing his skin, the feeling of hunger gnawing softly at his stomach. Klaus isn’t very good at feeding himself. There’s no pain, he’s just never hungry. Ben can never understand it.

“No,” Klaus murmurs, lips working around the cigarette. He takes a deep huff and holds the smoke in his lungs, closing his eyes. When he exhales, he turns his head to the side, as though Ben might smell it. “But you want to.”

Ben doesn’t reply, because he’s right. Klaus knows it, too – he huffs under his breath, placing the cigarette between his lips again. His silence is enough of an answer. Ben turns to the curtains of the room, studying their pattern as though he might find the right words to say there.

He feels cheated. He always has. He felt cheated in life, with a power he never wanted and could barely control, one that made him hurt and maim and kill. He feels cheated out of an easy descent into death, and out of the restful respite he always craved. All his life, he wanted a reprieve from the never-ending sensation of his body; when he got it, all he wanted was some of it back again. He feels cheated that he never seems to ever get what he wants, or what he expects. He feels cheated now, out of this opportunity to live again presented on a silver platter. The opportunity to help again in a real way, right at his fingertips.

Ben grits his teeth. He knows he’s a hypocrite, but it doesn’t seem to help anything. He wishes Klaus would understand.

He wonders what Klaus is craving, right now. What he could simply get for himself, if he wanted. Like a taco, or chips. He hasn’t eaten anything since they got here. Klaus had just walked in after talking with Allison and collapsed onto the bed, propping himself up on the headboard, looking heavy and sad. He keeps looking at his hands like Ben does, like he’s making sure they’re real. Ben doesn’t get it. He’s the realest thing in this world, and he doesn’t even know.

Klaus sighs, deep and weary, like his ribs will rattle with the effort. “Look, why don’t you just go check on the others, or something?”

He’s always doing this – asking Ben to leave. ~~~~

When they were little, Klaus said that ghosts hung around and came to him if they had unfinished business. Ben doesn’t know what his business is. He just feels empty, and angry. He wonders if he’s meant to be a ghost at all, or if something just got mixed up along the way.

He eyes Klaus, who’s just staring at him. He looks down at his toes.

“You need to eat something,” Ben pushes, stepping closer to the bed. “You need water, and you need to sleep.”

Something steels over Klaus’ face, and he shifts away from Ben, further over on the covers. Ben stops in his tracks, frowning as Klaus curls ever so slightly in on himself.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Klaus mutters. “But I’m not going to be able to sleep if you’re here, okay? Maybe in a while I’ll forgive you, alright, but right now I don’t fucking _want_ to.”

Klaus doesn’t ask him to leave again, just sits there and stares at his hands. The fingers holding the cigarette are trembling, and Ben watches the lit tip jostle up and down. He doesn’t breathe out a sigh, because he doesn’t need to. Doesn’t walk out the door, because he doesn’t need to do that, either. He simply fades, letting himself disappear, and recollects himself outside of the room. He walks out of the house, stopping in the front garden. He peeks through the window, watching as Klaus breathes in relief and puts out the cigarette before turning over, fully clothed, onto the bed.

Ben turns around and begins walking down the street. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but that doesn’t matter. Maybe he can catch a movie.

.

Six is staring at his dinner plate, one hand on his stomach as he feels it lurch and quake. The plate is a mosaic of muted colors, a brown-green-white of meatloaf, peas, and mashed potatoes. He blinks at it, like maybe if he stares long enough it’ll suddenly become appetizing, but all he manages to do is flare his nostrils a bit. He wills his hand to clutch the fork on the table, but it stays locked flush against his abdomen.

He can hear One chowing down on his second serving at the other end of the table. He doesn’t think that his brother usually sounds like a rabid animal tearing a carcass apart, but maybe Six is feeling a little sensitive. He knows that the new nanny, the blond one with the nice smile, makes better food than the other ones did. It’s not about the taste. He swallows the saliva in the back of his throat, grimacing. Seven gives him a small glance of sympathy, eyes quickly diverting to her own place set. Two is staring at him openly, like this dinner was the greatest gift he’s ever been given, and he can’t believe Six is wasting it.

Four pushes the last of his peas around his plate, but that’s normal. Four almost never finishes a meal.

“Number Six,” Reginald’s voice is cutting across the silence of the hall, deep and foreboding. He jumps every time he hears it echo in a disapproving tone, just a little bit. He’s trying to stop it. He knows Reginald hates it. “I do not have to remind you what the consequences are if you do not eat your dinner.”

Seven frowns, staring intently at her potatoes. Six thinks about telling their father about his stomachaches but speaking out of turn at the table is forbidden, too. Six nods, making his hand wrap around the fork. He goes for the mashed potatoes, because that seems like it’ll be the easiest to swallow. He scoops a small amount up and puts it delicately in his mouth, grimacing and furrowing his eyebrows as he swallows it. His stomach rolls underneath his other hand, making him feel nauseous and dizzy.

“God,” Five mutters his breath, just quietly enough that Reginald can’t hear.

Four decides to join in on the party, although he’s not as good at it. At six years old, he hasn’t quite mastered his _indoor voice_. He leans over so that he’s nearly on top of Six’s plate. “Tummy ache again? You gonna yak?”

“Number Four,” Reginald scolds, and Four zips back up again. Their father eyes them, a strange mix of contemplation and disappointment on his face. Six knows why. Of all of the children, Six and Seven are the only ones yet to showcase any evidence of powers. They all discovered their abilities gradually over time, more or less in order. Even Four, who has always been unpredictable, walking around with cold hands and wandering eyes, discovered his power before him. Last year, Four had finally burst into Father’s study without having been invited, crying about a man named Lucas watching him sleep. Apparently, the man was dead, and was some bad guy whose body had just been found in an apartment nearby. Father was intrigued by his powers, although it was clear no one understood them. That had to be better than him, though, Six thinks. Nothing is worse than the way Father looks at him, like he’s waiting for something that’s never going to come.

“All of you but Number Six are dismissed for the evening,” Reginald says, and Six realizes that time has passed. Everyone else’s plates are clean. They all turn their heads to look at him, but Six keeps his eyes trained on his plate. A single pea rolls off another and lands on the porcelain, like it’s mocking him. “I expect you all to work on your studies before retiring to bed at precisely twenty-one hundred.”

A chorus of “yes, Father” and one small “finally” sounds off as the rest of his siblings stand, barely remembering to push in their chairs and resisting the urge to sprint toward the staircase. Six is left in his chair, staring at the peas as Reginald also rises, leaving the room without saying a word. The new nanny, Grace, appears beside him, crouching down so that her hands are on his chair, her face level with his.

“Now, Number Six,” she says, dazzling him with a smile. “It’s important for young boys like you to eat their dinners. I know you’ll want to grow up big and strong.”

Six stares back at her, his face blank. He wonders how big One will grow up to be, the other boy already a whole head taller than he is. He’s half convinced he’s never going to grow at all. He tightens his grip around his fork. The peas bounce around like they don’t want to be a part of this, either, but he forces them into his mouth. Grace looks at him with pride as he holds down the nausea.

“Good, Number Six,” Grace says, and he frowns. “Isn’t it delicious?”

It’s nearly bedtime by the time he finishes, the food cold and congealed on his plate as he forces it down his throat. When he’s done, he stands, the fork clattering against the plate, and he walks up toward his room on shaky legs. The sounds of the rest of his siblings washing up for bed filters through to his ears, but he bypasses the bathroom entirely. He changes into his nightclothes, chest aching. He has a sudden longing for the last nanny that had been around for as long as Grace – sometimes, without telling anyone, she would sit by his bed when his stomach ached and sing him a single song. He doesn’t know where she went, or why she left. He doesn’t dare ask.

Four is shouting down the hall, and Six can hear from his position curled up on his bed that his mouth is full of toothpaste. He can picture Four letting the foam dribble down his face until One pushes him or Five makes a disgusted expression. Six scrunches his eyes closed. He doesn’t even want to think about it. Laughing would make his stomach feel even worse.

Slowly, one by one, the other children enter their own rooms and close their doors, the lights in the hallway shutting off at twenty-one hundred exactly.

He gives sleeping an honest try, pushing his face into the pillow and rolling around to try to find a comfortable position. It’s impossible. His stomach lurches and quakes, gas rumbling inside so much he’s sure his skin is moving with the air bubbles underneath. He shifts onto his side and the pain spikes through him in a tearing motion across his midsection. Six curls into a ball, biting back a scream. After a moment he rolls over again and sits up in the bed, wiping at his eyes with the back of his sleeve. It’s silent in the hall, and they’re not supposed to leave their bedrooms after dark, but Six thinks this could be an exception. Like all the times Four gets up to pee in the middle of the night.

Six puts on his slippers and pads his way out into the hallway, taking small, careful steps. One hand traces the wallpaper while the other is wrapped around his stomach in a tight hold. With every step he takes, his stomach flips and turns. With no lights on in the hall, it makes him even queasier. He walks down to the bathroom, intent on finding a toilet to curl himself over, but stops when he notices the lights on further down the hall. Feeling momentarily steady, he passes the bathroom and rounds the corner to the stairwell, where he sees Grace standing in front of a few sparse portraits on the walls.

She doesn’t look at him as he approaches. She stares deeply into one of the paintings, a sparse depiction of a field with a small house in the corner. Six thinks it’s kind of boring.

“Grace?” He murmurs, voice weak and timid. Acid rolls up his throat and he thinks he’s going to puke, so he slaps a hand over his mouth. Grace turns to look at him, and nothing happens.

“Number Six?” Grace asks, the pensive look on her face replaced by a dazzling smile. “What are you doing out of bed? Your father wants you all to be rested and healthy, like young children should be.”

“Uh,” Six looks down at the floor, focusing on the tiny spaces between the fabric loops in the rug. “I can’t sleep.”

“Whyever not?”

Six frowns, staring even harder at the rug. “My stomach hurts.”

“Oh, now,” Grace steps closer to him. “We can’t be wandering out of bed because of a stomachache. I’ll get you some tea and a warm pad, how’s that? Get you nice and cozy.”

A heating pad sounds nice, but tea is gross, so Six quickly overcomes the temptation. “I don’t think that’ll work,” he admits.

Grace blinks, like she’s puzzled. “Whyever not?”

“Grace?” a voice sounds from behind her, and Six raises his head to see Pogo step out from around the corner. “Why are you – Number Six, what are you doing out of bed?”

Six doesn’t completely trust Grace, who has only been around for a little while and makes him eat his dinner even when it hurts. He does trust Pogo, who has been in the house since he could possibly remember. The other day, Five had leaned over to him and whispered that not every house in America has a chimpanzee butler. Six has trouble believing it. Pogo has always been there.

“Pogo,” Six cries, stepping forward toward him. “Pogo, please. My stomach hurts.”

“Another stomachache?” Pogo asks, looking down at him. Six grasps one of Pogo’s sleeves in his hands, tugging slightly downward. “Grace will get you a cup of tea before you go back to bed.”

“I don’t _want_ tea,” Six complains, but it barely comes out a whisper. “Pogo, it _hurts_.”

Pogo frowns at him, looking like he’s going to protest again, but then the rolling sensation _tears_ through Six’s abdomen. He falters, knees buckling as he cries out. Pogo catches him and directs Grace to scoop him up into her arms when it’s clear he can’t get up to walk anymore. Six begins to cry, soundless hiccups of pain-filled tears as Grace and Pogo make eye contact.

“Bring him to the infirmary,” Pogo directs her. “I’ll fetch Master Hargreeves.”

Grace shushes him as she carries him through the hall, no sway in her step as they move as not to jostle him. It’s like he weighs nothing, Six thinks, watching Grace’s legs move beneath him. For some reason, this thought fills him with anger, and the influx of emotion is so sudden that he begins to cry anew. They reach the infirmary and Grace settles him down on the cot, turning back away from him to turn on the light. Six topples onto his right side, his arms clutching his midsection. His foot keeps twitching out in little kicks, legs incapable of finding a comfortable position.

Six doesn’t know who to call for. He knows he needs something, some _one_ , but he’s too scared to make a sound. He’s heard Three call out for Dad before, after she fell and skinned her knee open wide enough that blood ran down her leg. None of the rest of them have done it, though. It just feels wrong. Like maybe he wouldn’t come.

Reginald comes now, though, bursting through the door with Pogo in tow. He’s still dressed like he was at dinner, not yet wound down for bed (Four says he doesn’t sleep, but how would he know?). He rolls up his sleeves as he approaches the cot, eyes looking down the length of his nose and through the glare of his monocle. Six wills his jaw to stop quivering.

“Number Six,” Reginald acknowledges him, eyes scanning over him with detached disinterest. “What is so important that you are out of bed at this hour?”

Tears threaten to spill over the edges of Six’s eyes. When he sniffs to keep them inside, the sharp pain in his stomach spikes. He doesn’t know what to say. “It – it _hurts_.”

Reginald stares at him for a moment, and then gestures to Grace, barking out an order. Grace comes up beside him and guides his arms away. She unbuttons the front of his nightshirt, pulling and dragging the fabric away from his shoulders so that his chest is bare.

Without warning, Grace’s hands go from hovering over his stomach to _pushing_ down. It feels as though his stomach is pushing back against her, rolling and moaning, and Six lets out a choked scream. Pogo is watching from afar, a worried furrow casting his eyebrows down over his eyes. Six wishes he’d come closer or hold his hand. Anything.

Grace pushes down several more times, making Six quiver and cry out. A cold sweat has broken out all over his body, and he can’t stop kicking his legs. Reginald frowns down at him, raising a hand to tell Grace to stop. He hums low, under his breath, as the skin of Six’s abdomen begins to visibly shift and buckle, something inside pushing against the cavity wall. The pain is incredible. Six lets his head crash against the bed, tears flowing freely from his eyes.

“Sir –” Pogo begins, but Reginald cuts him off, turning and leaving the room as quickly as he came in. Six is afraid he’s just left him here, left him forever with the fear and the pain, but he returns within a few moments, a handheld machine clutched in his hand. Grace pries Six’s arms away again as Reginald presses buttons on the machine, attaching leads with sticky ends onto his stomach. Pogo approaches softly, peering at the screen as Six tries not to buckle off the table.

A particularly strong force rolls through his stomach, and Six keens in pain. At the same time, the machine in Reginald’s hands beeps rapidly, an undistinguishable series of light and lines flashing for only the adults to understand. Six is too tired to understand. He just wants it all to stop.

After a moment, Reginald nods at Grace and she fetches him a painkiller. There is no tea, or hot cocoa, just a glass of tepid water and the pill that feels too large for his throat. Pogo detaches the leads from his chest, and hands him back his shirt. Six just clutches it, holding it tightly against his chest, and shivers. Everything still hurts, and he still feels like he might throw up, but when he looks up at Reginald, he’s grinning.

“Well, Number Six,” he leers. “It seems there might actually be something special about you.”

Six has to swallow in order to speak, the scant saliva in his mouth not enough to wet his throat. “This is my power?”

Reginald nods, slow and contemplative. “It would assume so.”

Six frowns. Everything is bouncing around his head like a house fly, not quite landing. “What is it?”

“The specifics of the creature’s nature are yet to be determined,” Reginald says, already turning away from him. “We will meet tomorrow, after group training with your siblings, to determine the parameters of your influence on one another.”

He thinks his ears are ringing. Grace passes a comforting hand through his hair, but he barely feels it. “Creature?”

“I would advise you go to bed now, Number Six,” Reginald orders, at the door. “Training begins at eight-hundred tomorrow.”

Reginald leaves. Pogo lingers, casting him a pitying glance, but then he leaves as well. Grace sits him up, helping put his nightshirt back on, and then leads him from the infirmary. She only takes him as far as the stairwell, to the chair and the painting where he found her, before he’s left to walk back to his room on his own. His stomach quivers under his hand, calmed by the medication but still painful. It pushes against him, inquisitive and demanding, and he has to stop several times to lean against the wall. The house is quiet, echoing in a way that usually feels lonely.

As he stumbles into his room and falls into his bed again, Six thinks that right then he’d give anything to be really alone.

.

Klaus steals the book from another random junkie on his sixteenth day through rehab, and he prepares to leave on the thirtieth day with it still clutched in his hands. Ben’s not sure which attempt this is, this time. He can count the days, but the longer timelines get muddled as they pass by. He does know that this stint has been unsuccessful since the day Klaus rummaged through another guy’s stuff and found a book with their sister’s name on the cover.

“Klaus, come on,” Ben groans, following his brother’s manic movements as he exits the rehab center. He has all of his belongings clutched in his arms, a small, sad pile of things that are all Klaus has to his name. A jacket with eyeliner and nail polish in the pocket, an extra pair of pants, a small pouch filled with an even smaller amount of money, and now the book. Klaus has a habit of trying on clothes at the homes of people he visits for sex and then leaving in them. He wears a single outfit for a few hours, or a few days, and then changes into someone else’s clothes like he’s shedding skins. All he truly owns is the one jacket he wears everywhere, and maybe a couple of extra things if he really likes them. Ben has begged him to use some of his money on warmer clothes during the wintertime, but Klaus always blows him off, making some excuse about not having to do laundry.

“At least stop and get yourself together.”

Klaus doesn’t answer him. His eyes have a manic, empty quality that tunes Ben into the fact that he’s about to face a long period of disappointment and the silent treatment. He wants to make Klaus sit down, or call Diego, but he knows that Klaus is going to go straight for more drugs. After reading the book, Ben understands, but he still doesn’t like it.

“It’s ten in the morning,” he protests, following Klaus as he walks down the sidewalk, lanky limbs askew as he jets forward. They turn into an alleyway only a couple of blocks from the center, empty and unremarkable except for the absence of any overhead lights and a large dumpster looming on the right side. Klaus approaches the dumpster and throws all of the stuff in his hands on the ground. He makes a hitching sound in the back of his throat, something between a sob and a scream, and throws his arms onto the brick wall of the adjacent building. Something sits in the space behind Ben’s sternum that he thinks may have once been pity, or concern, but now is masked by resignation.

It’s not the first time he’s seen nearly this exact scene.

“Charlie won’t even be around here until at least dinner time,” Ben tries to reason.

Klaus’ eye twitches, and he makes an abortive sound that Ben takes to mean that he’s willing to wait. He crouches down and sits with his back against the side of the dumpster, pointer finger twitching as he brings his arm up. He scrubs at his forehead with the back of his forearm. Ben takes some satisfaction in knowing that despite Klaus’ best efforts to ignore him, he can still hear him. The vindictive feeling isn’t something he’s necessarily proud of, but sometimes it’s all he has.

When even Klaus acts like he’s not there, he starts to believe that maybe he isn’t. Being a ghost is a constant mindfuck and philosophical inquiry wrapped up into one. It’s exhausting.

He likes to think that he picks his battles, so he settles down on the pavement across from Klaus, next to his meager pile of stuff. It’s clear that nothing he says is going to keep Klaus sober today, but maybe if he’s annoying enough he can get Klaus to spend at least five dollars on something to eat. He’d been in a hurry to get out of the center, so rushed that he completely bypassed the subpar muffins in the main room. If he had been able, Ben would have stuffed both of their pockets with the rock-hard pastries. Klaus wasn’t going to call Diego, or anyone. Not that Diego was a gracious host. The man seemed to subsist on raw eggs, beef jerky, and protein bars.

Unprompted, Klaus makes a jerking motion, knocking his head back against the dumpster. A harsh breath forces its way past clenched teeth. Ben looks around them but can’t see more than a few lingering ghosts. None of them have seemed to notice Klaus yet. That will change soon, though.

“Fuck,” Klaus spits, clenching his eyes shut with enough force that he shakes. “ _Fuck_.”

There are more ghosts than someone might expect in community rehab centers. Klaus likes to joke that it’s not that they died there, but they keep thinking in death that they have to keep coming back. That they think it’s their last and eternal task to finally get clean.

That’s the joke, Klaus always says, wheezing out laughter that sounds acutely akin to the hurried breaths of a panic attack. They’re all already clean forever. They’re dead.

Klaus is fumbling with the lighter in his pocket, pulling it into his trembling hands. Ben eyes the book, sitting closed on top of Klaus’ extra pants. Klaus had torn through the thing as soon as he’d found it, reading at a pace that Ben was honestly unaware he was capable of, but he’d stopped just before the section on Ben. They all had their own chapters, where Vanya has dished out everything she ever knew or thought about them.

Ben frowns. He wants to know.

“Klaus,” he says, snapping a bit to get his brother’s attention. Klaus is staring down at his lighter, flicking it on and off in a repetitive ritual. “Klaus, I want to read it. Turn the pages for me.”

Klaus doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look at him. Something flares in his chest, and he shifts uncomfortably. The anger he feels now as a ghost isn’t the same as he felt in life. Before, the fury was primal, and strong, and somehow in and outside of him at once. Now, he just feels bitter and resentful.

The creature is still there, but it’s been quiet for years. An echo of intent.

“Klaus,” Ben snaps. “You know I can’t read it myself. I deserve to know, too.”

The flame sparks to life, reflecting in Klaus’ eyes. His lips are downturned, a vague look of focus and disgust. His breaths are audible, a soft raking that grinds against his vocal cords. The heel of his left foot scrapes back and forth on the gravelly pavement. He brings his other hand up to hold it up over the flame, close but not touching.

Ben gestures to the book, waving his arms. He wants to reach for it and try, but he knows it’ll only be humiliating. It sits there, mocking him. “I want to know what she said. Klaus. Look at me. _Look at me_.”

He groans harshly, a cut off shout, and stands. Klaus doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t even give any indication that he’s there. He knows that Ben _hates_ that.

“Can you stop being a selfish prick for a single second?” He yells, and then cuts himself off. He hates yelling, always has. Hates that Klaus makes him feel like this. That he makes him yell. He hates that he can’t just turn the pages of the book himself. Hates that he’s the only one talking.

“Fine,” he says, and it’s more of a whisper now. Klaus doesn’t look at him. “Fine. Figure it out yourself.”

He turns on his heel, walking out of the alley. He doesn’t know where he’ll go, but he knows it won’t be far, or for long. He’ll come back just as Klaus self-destructs again, like he always does.

Klaus continues to look at the flame, mouth moving in silent words. It’s like magic, sometimes. He looks, and he blinks, and the ghosts are gone.

.

Ben turns the pages of his book, letting his fingertips linger on the corner before catching it under his thumb. He has half of his mind on the story in front of him, and the other on the closed door of his room. He finished the book Reginald gave him to read earlier in the morning before breakfast, and he hopes he has time to read this one before getting assigned another. They’re barely ever allowed to do anything for fun (not that many of the others would choose to read for fun in their free hour) but Pogo got him a small stack of novels to try. He’s sick of the tomes about otherworldly connections and accounts of interdimensional creatures Reginald has him pore over. As much as he likes reading, no amount of research on what kind of creature is residing in his abdominal cavity is going to tell them what it actually _is_.

It’s been two years, and all Ben has to show for his power is a blip on a radar screen and a frequently recurring stomachache.

Reginald is convinced that he’s some sort of portal for an interdimensional creature, just a door they haven’t found the right key for. His myriad attempts to open said door are exhausting – everything from having Six breathe and focus to making him run miles and miles to see if something will emerge when his body is truly exhausted.

The doorknob rattles, and Six freezes. He eyes the door, but then hears Two yell down the hall, and One snap back at him. He rolls his eyes and brings his attention back to the page.

Suddenly, Five appears in front of him in a burst of blue and static. Six stifles a shout, one hand flying out in front of him while the other grips the book with white knuckles. Five stares at him, smirking, eyes flicking from his face to the book and back again.

Six frowns and throws the book on top of his covers. “I hate it when you do that.”

“You love it,” Five says, sticking his hands in his pockets. “You’ve done enough reading for today.”

“You’re one to talk,” Six grabs at his blazer from where he’d tossed it on his pillows. “I saw you tearing through that theoretical physics book Dad gave you.”

“And it was very boring,” Five complains pointedly. “Those idiots don’t know what they’re talking about. You read one thesis on the holographic principle, you’ve read them all.”

“I’m sure you could do so much better.”

“I _know_ I could,” Five leans forward for emphasis. “Once Dad lets me get into casual dynamical triangulations, then I’ll start to get somewhere. He still won’t let me even look in the direction of time travel. As if they’re not the same theoretical quandary. They’re interwoven concepts. Basically related.”

“You know,” Ben tugs his blazer over his arm, ignoring a small twinge in his stomach. “We’re supposed to be in what, third grade? I think I’d like to stick to my novel.”

“You read at a twelfth-grade level, Six,” Five scoffs. “You’re reading Hemingway right now.”

“It’s the only thing Pogo could find,” Six protests weakly. “Whatever. I’m sick of being ‘special’.”

Five grins, bouncing up on his toes. “Which is _exactly_ why I’m here. We’re sneaking out.”

Six blinks. “What?”

“I need to get out of this house,” Five says. “The last time we left was to go to that facility and watch One throw a bunch of cars around. We’re never going to learn anything useful if we’re stuck in here for our entire lives.”

Six’s stomach rumbles, a deep inner disturbance that he’s started to associate with whatever _it_ is. “I don’t know. It’s the middle of the day. And – why don’t you ask Four? He’s always aching to leave.”

“I don’t want to bring Four,” Five says, like he’s explaining something to a child. Six frowns. “I want to bring _you_.”

Six sighs. “Where are we going?”

“I’d like to go to the library. There _has_ to be something about linking space and time I can get my hands on. I saw a citation for a book by Rafael Sorkin in the text Dad just gave me, I’d like to check it out.”

Six perks up a bit at that. “And you know where it is?”

Five nods. “Right down the street. Saw it on a drive a few months back. Amazing what the old man keeps right under our noses.”

One always tells them that they’re staying hidden from the world so that when they’re ready to fight as a team, no one will question them. That everything is all part of Dad’s big plan. Six wants to believe that, but he sees the way Reginald looks at the end of his individual training sessions. Underneath his stoicism, he looks stumped, like Six is some puzzle he just can’t quite figure out.

“ _And_ ,” Five grins even wider. “Dad is out for the rest of the day. Pogo said he got called for an important meeting, so we have until dinnertime.”

Six pauses. The allure of going to a real public library outside of the mansion is strong. Reginald’s collection of books is vast, but the library they have in the house is so old and musty. Six sees Grace dusting it, like, four times a day. He imagines that a public library would smell clean, like freshly cut pine trees, and that they hand you a hot chocolate to drink as soon as you walk through the door. With candy canes. And _marshmallows_.

Five raises an eyebrow at him.

But. “How are we going to leave? We can’t just sneak out the front door.”

Five flattens his lips, considering this. “I could try to blink outside with you.”

Six’s stomach protests vehemently at that possibility, and he doesn’t even think it has anything to do with his powers. “No offense, but I’m not really interested in being your guinea pig on that. Last week you tried to blink into Seven’s room and ended up with your arm halfway through her and Four’s wall.”

Five waves a dismissive hand. “Dad’s been wanting to soundproof Four’s room anyway, now he has an excuse.”

Six thinks about the layout of the house. It’s true that Reginald is planning on soundproofing Four’s room – he’s always been a restless sleeper, but over the last year his nightmares and cries at night have become increasingly disturbing, to the point that Seven barely gets any sleep being next door to him. Six has suggested sleeping with his stuffed unicorn – that’s how he gets to sleep now, anyway; he cuddles up with his stuffed seal on top of his stomach, and the light weight helps the creature settle until he drifts off.

His thought process doubles back.

“Four’s room,” he says suddenly. “His window has the fire escape underneath it.”

“Perfect,” Five smiles. “Let’s go.”

The thought of trudging through Four’s room to leave without inviting him along tugs at something in Six’s chest, but before he can suggest they wait for him to go to the bathroom or anything, Five grabs hold of his wrist and pulls him into the hall. Five opens the door to Four’s room without knocking, and Six tries to swallow down the baseball that’s suddenly appeared in his throat.

Four is upside down on his bed, head dangling over the side with his hands curled over his ears. He lets go when he sees them, the tips of his ears and his forehead bright red. It’s obvious he’s been in that position for a while.

“Oh, hello!” Four cries loudly, sounding half annoyed and half happy to see them. “What a surprise. My brothers, coming to visit me. Two for the price of one.”

“Hi,” Five says curtly, crossing the room to the window. He opens the glass, leaning out over the sill to peer at the fire escape below. He nods to himself, and then gestures for Six to follow him.

“What are you guys doing?” Four asks, flipping over right side up.

“Nothing,” Six says, way too quickly. Five shoots him a glare. He frowns back an apology. He’s not very good at lying – he’s never had to do it before.

“Nothing,” Four mimics back, voice high-pitched and mocking. He looks at the window, and then back at Six again. “You guys are sneaking out?”

“No,” Six squeaks.

At the same time Five sighs and says “yes”.

“More importantly,” Four sits up, crossing his arms over his chest. “You guys are sneaking out without _me_?”

“We’re going to the library, Four,” Five says curtly, one leg already out the window. “We didn’t think you’d want to come.”

Four scoffs, and flops back against the bed. “Yeah, whatever. Go nerd out over some books. Not like you need me or anything, the only person who knows their way around outside of this death chamber.”

“You’ve snuck out before?” Six asks, against his best judgement. For some reason, his feet are still plastered to the floor in front of Four’s bed. Five keeps sending him increasingly annoyed looks.

“Oh yeah,” Four smirks, a glint of mirth in his eye that always makes Six unsure if he’s being serious or not. “Loads of times. How else would I know?”

“Thanks for the offer, but we’re just taking a short trip,” Five hisses. “Next time we’re looking to go trick or treating, we’ll give you a call.”

“Ha-ha,” Four deadpans, and Six scurries to the windowsill. “Good one. Halloween-based humor. Sure, just use my window whenever you want, guys. Open to the public.”

“Thanks,” Six says, and then ducks through the window after Five. The drop down to the metal fire escape is a few feet, but they catch themselves easily, and quickly descend to the street of the alleyway.

Adrenaline is coursing through Six’s veins. His stomach stirs in what feels like excitement but could easily be the creature shifting inside of him. Or indigestion. It’s hard to tell.

Five races out onto the street, legs lankier than his, and Six has to jog to keep up. Three keeps saying he and Seven will reach their growth spurt soon and catch up with the rest of them, but Three also lies for fun, so he’s not sure that’ll ever be true.

“Do you think Four will be mad?” Six asks, trailing behind Five’s right shoulder. “Or tell Pogo on us, or something?”

Five scoffs. “Four’s a lot of things, but he’s not a snitch. We’ll be fine, we just have to be quick.”

The public library really is only just down the street, only about four blocks away from the edges of the Academy. It looms even larger than the house does, at least vertically, and Six gazes at it with his mouth wide open. He looks around at all the people entering and exiting the big entry doors, and abruptly feels self-conscious in his uniform.

“No one else is wearing a uniform,” he muses out loud, and then feels stupid just for saying it.

Five smirks at him. He has a way of making Six feel scrutinized, but not enough that he thinks Five’s opinion of him actually changes. It’s a fine line to ride. “Of course no one else is wearing uniforms. Except for maybe Catholic school kids, or something. Just act normal.”

Six scrunches up his face. “How do we do that?”

“I don’t know,” Five shrugs. “Act like Catholic school kids.”

They climb up the stairs to the entrance of the building, weaving through a few adults pushing in and out of the doors. The inside of the library is even more beautiful than the outside, its circular floors emerging from the ground and climbing toward the sky. There are real trees next to pillars of stone, and if he strains his eyes Six can see a small tank of brightly colored fish on the opposite wall. It’s large and extravagant and beautiful, just like the house; but in all the ways that the Academy feels like a stuffy old museum, the library feels bright and timeless.

Six loves it.

“Great. So, the fiction section is on the ground floor, so stay here,” Five instructs him, tucking them both behind a pillar. “The placard says theoretical physics is on the fifth, so I’ll go up there. I’ll be quick. Let’s hope they actually have something on casual sets, or else this whole thing is a bust.”

“Okay,” Six nods, still looking around at the art placed on the walls. “Right. Just remember, Dad says no using our powers outside of home, so –”

Before he can finish, Five rolls his eyes and blinks out of existence in a sharp burst of blue. Six groans, rubbing his ears free of the residual static Five leaves behind, and then steps out from behind the pillar to look for a novel to read. He’s immediately overwhelmed by all of his choices, and he finds his feet wandering over to a prominent table broadcasting best sellers. Six’s fingers ghost over the covers, unsure how to go about picking anything to read. He’s always just been given books, either from Reginald as an assignment or as a gift from Pogo. He picks up two that have covers that call out to him, peering back behind him to check if anyone is standing over his shoulder. His heartbeat feels like it’s in his throat, and he keeps expecting to see Reginald appear out of nowhere to reprimand him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a man with graying hair, and he nearly ducks under the table.

As suddenly as he disappeared, Five blinks onto the floor behind him with a huff of breath. Six jerks, his knee knocking into the wood of the table, and turns around to glare at Five. His arms are full of textbooks, each looking thicker and more complicated than the last.

Five blinks at him, eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

Six collects himself. “Nothing. That was fast.”

“Knew what I was looking for. Find anything?” Five reaches out and grabs one of the books in Ben’s grasp, shifting his stack into one hand to peer at the cover and back. “Seems advanced.”

“Shut up,” Six spits, taking the book back. He drags his thumb over the title, tracing the words – _The Things They Carried_. “I’m not dumb.”

“Never said you were,” Five shrugs. “Just didn’t take you for a war buff, or anything.”

“Have to learn stuff somehow,” Six argues. “It’s not like Dad’s ever going to teach us about anything other than ‘the coming fight’.”

“You know, I nearly forgot about that,” Five scrunches up his face. “How could I possibly forget? Alright. Give me your books. We have to get home.”

“Aren’t we going to pay for them?” Six asks. “Or check out, or whatever? How does this work?”

“Look at us. Does it look like we have _library cards_? I’ll blink outside, and you meet me out there. We’ll take them back when we’re done.”

“Are you sure?”

Five rolls his eyes, reaching out to take his books from his arms. “Positive. Come on, we have to get back.”

He’s gone before Six can argue. He huffs under his breath. This is why he doesn’t even try.

He walks out of the library as quickly as he came in, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head down. He keeps looking behind him, convinced someone is going to stop him, arrest him for not purchasing the books, say they saw Five teleport, call their _Dad_. No one so much as looks his way. He’s not sure to feel relieved or question why it was so easy for them to come out into public, just two kids in uniforms without any parental supervision.

Is this what normal kids feel like? When do normal kids get out of school? Four insists that if their schooling is boring, real school must be way worse, but Six isn’t sure. He thinks maybe he’d like it.

His stomach ripples under his blazer, a sore reminder of how and why he’s not normal. With it comes the unique feeling he sometimes experiences – frustration, a kind of disquiet. It makes him feel unsure, the burst of emotion intertwined with his thoughts but also somehow separate. He thinks that the creature tries to talk to him this way. None of his siblings believe him – he knows if it wasn’t for Reginald’s resolute belief in the existence of the creature, the rest of them would just as soon accept he doesn’t have any powers at all. Four promises that he believes him, though, as long as he doesn’t name whatever lives inside of him.

Six doesn’t know how he could. He hasn’t even seen it yet.

Five isn’t outside of the library when Six descends the front stairs. He looks around, but doesn’t see any trace of him, so he starts walking toward the edge of the giant building. It’s possible that Five teleported somewhere that no one would see him and is just walking back around to meet him. Maybe he dropped the books. Five isn’t very big, after all.

Six curves around the library into a side alley, this one even narrower and longer than the ones that frame the Academy. There are no fire escapes or even accessible windows, just a long stretch of pavement surrounded by brick and the smooth stone of the library. A dumpster is crammed into the small space, and beyond that, a few wooden crates and a large metal can.

And Five, surrounded by a group of men.

“Give it _back_ ,” Five spits. He’s obviously struggling with the number of books in his arms, cradling them with one trembling arm while reaching out with the other. A tall man stands a few feet beyond him, face twisted into a smile as he holds one of Six’s novels high in the air. Something lurches in his gut, and Six steps forward, a sharp warning on his tongue that doesn’t make it past his front teeth. The group of men haven’t noticed him yet, preoccupied with circling around Five and laughing at his frustration. Six doesn’t have a good gauge of how old people are (Mom looks young, and Dad looks _ancient_ ), but they’re obviously adults, four of them in worn, stained clothes. Six doesn’t think they came here for the library.

“Why don’t you take it back, little man?” The guy holding the book sneers. “Do that little magic trick again for us.”

Shit. They saw Five blink out of the library. He must have landed here.

Dad is going to kill them.

“Lick rust, dirtbag,” Five growls, and the man laughs.

“What a mouth on you!” He throws the book toward one of the other men, who catches it clumsily. “Who’s been teaching you your manners?”

The man steps forward quickly, catching Five of guard and pushing him on the side that’s holding the stack of books. Five falls backward, the books scattering to the ground beside him. Five’s elbow strikes the pavement, and he lets out a short yell that’s half anger and half pain.

“Five!” Six hears himself call. Everyone’s heads whip toward him as he marches down the alleyway toward the men. Five’s eyes are wide. He shakes his head sharply at him, but he ignores it. Anger and fear are pulsing through him in waves, radiating throughout his whole body. Reginald always tells them that there are bad people outside that they are training to stop, but he didn’t think they’d encounter them on their first trip out.

They hurt his brother. The rage that comes with that thought washes over him like he’s been dunked in a hot tank of water. He finds he doesn’t mind it.

“Lookie here,” One of the men laughs. “Little man’s sidekick.”

Six stands a few feet back, nerves making his hands twitch. “Let’s get out of here, Five.”

“No,” Five grunts, standing up and dusting himself off. “Not until we get your book back.”

“Oh, it’s _your_ book,” The first man says. “My apologies, then.”

Six’s eye twitches. “Thank you.”

“You know, if it’s _your book_ ,” the man steps toward them. “I wonder what else you kids have got. Daddy fill those pockets with something good?”

“We don’t have anything,” Five argues. “Just give us the book back.”

“Look like spoiled rich kids to me,” Another man jeers.

“Could have lots of pocket money.”

“I got an idea,” The first man holds out a hand in supplication. “We’ll give you the book back, if you kids give us everything you’ve got. Fair trade. No harm, no foul.”

Five seethes, his eyes narrowed to slits. “We don’t have any money.”

“Foul, then,” the man shrugs, and then lunges forward, grabbing Six by the lapel of his blazer. He squeals as the man tugs him forward and throws him to the ground. Five yells for him, but two men push him over, rummaging in his pockets. All of their training abandons Six’s mind in a blind panic. He scrabbles away from the men on his hands and knees, and he can feel his heartbeat bursting through his chest. A hand grabs the back of his jacket and pulls him back like he weighs nothing, laughing. He can’t see Five, or the books, or anything. He just sees the pavement, and the brick, and the stone.

“Let go,” he says, lashing out with his elbows. Instead of obliging, more hands come down, tapping at his jacket and forcing him to turn over. Another wave of rage and fear washes over him, so strong that his ears are ringing. He feels like someone is holding him down under a high tide. A red-hot ocean, and tears at the corners of his eyes. “Let go.”

Five cries out, but he can’t see him past the bulk of the man over him. Six kicks out at the man’s knees, and lands something hard enough to make him curse. He brings a backhand across Six’s cheek, making him bite the inside of his mouth. Two hands grab his jacket and force him upright. They’re yelling, but he can’t make out anything they’re saying.

Five shouts again. Six’s ears ring, and he clenches his eyes shut. He feels like he’s going to scream.

So he does.

“Let _go_!”

Everyone is screaming, now. Six’s body is rigid, like it’s being held up by an invisible wall behind him, and everything hurts. He’s screaming because he’s angry, and it _hurts_ , but everyone else is screaming because they’re afraid. He doesn’t want to open his eyes. He feels like he can’t. The anger has glued his eyes shut tight and filled his ears, so he’s left alone in his body with all of the pain. He doesn’t want to.

He opens his eyes.

A large swath of blood paints the side of the library, white stone marred by deep red. One of the men is slumped against the stone, one of his arms ripped off and a large hole through the center of his chest. Another is farther toward the entry to the alley, looking like he tried to run, lying prone with his legs detached from his body. A third is laying on the ground in front of him, trying to crawl away, his hand clutched to his own abdomen like he’s trying to keep his guts inside.

Six’s guts are not inside. They’re swinging through the air, erratically searching the environment for something to touch. They’re a set of large, lengthy tentacles, moving almost too quickly to see, and drenched in blood.

Six screams again.

One of the tentacles whips toward the crawling man, spearing through his back and pinning him to the pavement. Five is crouched near the dumpster, eyes wide and tracing the movement of the tentacles. Six cries out, trying to keep them away from his brother, trying to do _anything_ , but all he can feel is the pain. One arcs toward Five, coming down with incredible speed. Six can see Five’s mouth form in a silent curse word before he disappears in a flash of blue. The tentacle strikes where Five was a second before, cracking the ground into rubble.

Six is crying, tears flowing freely down his face as the creature shreds through him. He doesn’t dare look down at his chest. The pain is enough. The last man is attempting to scoot away from him on his butt, dragging a bloody stump of a leg. One of the tentacles ensnares around the man’s other leg, flinging him up into the air and then slamming him into the opposite wall. Six can’t hear anything else, but he hears the crunch of the man’s bones before he clatters lifelessly to the ground. He sees the dent in the brick wall, and the remnants of guts and brain splattered amongst the blood. He somehow finds breath to keep screaming. He can’t feel his throat at all.

At some point, it ends. It ends, and Six falls back onto his butt on the hard ground. The tentacles are gone, his stomach feeling like a carved-out pumpkin with the flesh stuffed back inside. He slaps his hands frantically over his abdomen, searching for a wound or any evidence of the creature outside of his body, but all he finds is a ripped shirt and smooth skin. He’s breathing too fast, spots dancing in front of his eyes, but he can’t stop. The men surround him, a macabre testament to the creature’s existence.

It’s real. It’s real, and it was here, and it killed them.

Five reappears in a flash, standing far back away from him. The distance he’s deliberately placed between them makes Six start to cry again, this time silently. His chest buckles under his quiet sobs. His uninjured, woundless chest, surrounded by carcasses picked apart.

Five surveys the scene, eyebrows furrowed.

“Holy shit.” he says, blinking with wide eyes. He takes a breath and forces his shoulders down. “We have to go.”

He bends down to pick the books up off the ground, dusting rubble off of one and grimacing at the blood splattered on the cover of another. Six is still shaking, hugging his arms to his chest as he cries.

“It killed them,” Six sobs. “Why did it kill them?”

“Six,” Five says sternly, stepping closer to him. He looks up hopefully, but Five still stops a few feet away. “People heard the screams. We have to go.”

He doesn’t wait for Six to be okay, or even offer him his hand. Five just wraps his arms around the books, frantically jerking his head and taking off toward the other open end of the alleyway, the opposite way from where they came. It takes Six a moment to follow, eyes still locked on the unmoving forms of the corpses around him. After a moment and Five calling for him again, he turns around, stepping carefully and numbly with his arms clutching his stomach.

.

Reginald runs other experiments too, besides them. Diego and Five, for all they openly dislike their father, still crave his attention and approval and resent whatever he brings in the door. Any time wasted on any other project is time not spent paying attention to them. He doesn’t get it. He gets attention from Dad all the time, and he would trade it away in a minute. He keeps insisting he train his powers so that he can help people with the rest of his siblings. He doesn’t think they’re capable of helping anyone, but he follows along with whatever Dad says – only wanting to learn control so that he can keep it _inside_.

“Ben,” a small voice says, and he forces himself to look up. Tries to stop the shaking. Dad says it only gives them power. Vanya is standing in front of him, hands clutched in front of her. It pulls her shoulders, makes her look even more demure.

He’s still getting used to hearing his new name come out of other peoples’ mouths. The other night, he and Two – _Diego_ – stood in front of the bathroom mirrors together, practicing saying their names in soft whispers that eventually became confident declarations. He’s been writing it on the inside cover of all of his books.

“Father gave Allison some of the mice he won’t be using for his experiment,” Vanya says, voice low like she’s telling a secret. “He was going to euthanize them, but she convinced him to let us keep them as pets.”

Ben raises his eyebrows at that, pulling his legs up to his chest. The parlor seems ginormous, with just him and Vanya in it. He has trouble believing that Reginald would give them any kind of pet – Five and Luther had nearly _begged_ for a dog – but he imagines if anyone could get it done, it would be Allison.

“How many?” Ben asks.

“Just five,” Vanya says. “So we’d have to. I guess. Share. I was surprised Allison said I could hold one, I mean, I was surprised I asked. But I don’t think Five or Two would want to, I mean, it just doesn’t seem like something…”

Vanya trails off, looking more and more anxious the longer she speaks. Ben blinks at her. Usually someone would have spoken over her by now, but he doesn’t have anything to say. She looks uncomfortable, though, so he tries.

“I don’t know,” he admits, wringing his hands. “I’m not sure you guys want me around any animals.”

Actually, the thought fills him with pure panic. Two weeks ago, Reginald had made him unleash the creature in a room full of flying pigeons. He still couldn’t do it on demand, and instead had stood there staring at the birds until he felt like the creature’s hunger and bloodlust was dripping from his fingers. It unleashed the minute he began to cry, dropping dozens of bodies to the ground in seconds. The feathers had floated down in the moments after, getting in Ben’s hair and making him sneeze through his sobs.

“Oh, come on,” Allison’s voice appears behind the couch he’s sitting on, making him jump. She rounds the furniture, showcasing her cupped hands. A small white mouse sits in her palms, nose twitching as it circles around in her hold. Ben stares at its whiskers. It’s cute. “We’ve never had pets before. And who knows how long Father is going to actually let us keep them. Don’t you like him?”

Allison thrusts her hands toward his face, and Ben backs up as far as he can, pressing his body into the couch. He can feel this heart rate beginning to rise, and with it, the movement of the creature in his stomach.

He gulps. “No thanks.”

“I thought you’d _love_ him,” Allison presses. “They’re small, and quiet, and you keep them in a cage, so it’s easy to clean. _And_ they have more personality than a boring old fish. It’s no dog, or pony, but still.”

“Guess I’m just not an animal person,” Ben says tightly.

“Who am I supposed to give them to, then?” Allison asks, face incredulous. “I can’t give one to _Diego_ , he’ll probably stab in in target practice, or something. Klaus might step on it.”

“Or talk it to death,” Vanya giggles nervously, trying to be included.

Allison ignores her. Instead, she steps even closer to Ben, holding the mouse over his head.

“You just gotta give him a chance, Six.”

“I said no,” Ben’s voice quivers, which is the thing that ruins him, because all of what Dad thinks is a weakness is exploited by each and every one of them when they’re trying to be cruel. Allison smiles, wide and pretty, and drops the mouse onto his head.

Ben yelps, shooting up to standing and carding his hands frantically through his hair. The mouse falls onto the couch cushions, no worse for wear, but Ben backs away from his sisters, heart in his throat. The creature is quiet, but it could have chosen not to be. If the mouse had been there longer, if there had been more, he knew it wouldn’t be.

“You’re such a party-pooper, Ben.” Allison sneers, stomping her foot a little bit. “I heard a rumor –”

“Don’t.” Ben cuts her off, a shudder rolling down his spine. He turns and leaves the parlor without another word, leaving Allison to stare after him and Vanya to pick up the mouse from the cushions. He slams the door to his bedroom a little harder than necessary and spends the rest of the afternoon curled up by the window, reading his book.

That Saturday, Reginald packs them all in a car and drives them out to a field in the middle of nowhere for a training exercise. There are cows in the distance, the bleat of a goat if he strains his ears. Immediately, Klaus bends down to break off a stalk of hay, sticking it in the corner of his mouth and dramatically wiggling his eyebrows. The rest of them stand and watch as Luther launches a tractor as far as he can, and as Diego throws his knives to hit dozens of moving targets out of the sky.

They’re all talking under their breath as Ben steps forward, and he can’t hear what they’re saying. Reginald nods to them all, and they walk farther out into the field. The rest of them stop farther back, but Ben keeps walking until he’s in the middle of the herd of cattle. None of them even raise their heads to look at him. Ben turns, trying to catch his father’s eye, but they’re all simply staring at the scene. He swallows. The message is clear.

The wave of anger and _hunger_ is raw and overwhelming, surrounded by heavy bodies, and the tentacles erupt from his chest with his scream. They tear into the cows, stretching and flinging, dismembering and devouring. Ben closes his eyes until it’s over. It could be seconds or hours and he’d have no way of knowing.

When he opens his eyes, the creature is gone and the only one still looking at him is Reginald. Even Pogo has turned away. There is no sound but the soft whistle of the wind and Vanya’s quiet, horrified sobs.

He sits in the back with Klaus on the way back, the only one of them who doesn’t seem to get nauseous sitting with him when he’s covered in blood and gore. He’s immediately dismissed for a shower, and he stands for too long under the spray, hands clutching his arms in attempt to keep himself from shaking.

Feeling empty and detached, he walks the distance back to his room to change, but suddenly can’t stand the thought of being in there by himself. He steps carefully to the parlor, where Allison and Luther are playing with the mice, but they both look at him with guarded eyes. Allison clutches hers and brings it closer to her chest, guarding it from his sight.

He goes to Vanya’s room. Sometimes, when he feels overwhelmed and the escape of the books aren’t enough, she lets him sit quietly and listen to her play her violin. Today, he knocks softly on her door, and she only opens it a crack, looking him up and down with wide eyes.

“Hey,” he croaks, voice heavy from use. “Can I listen to you play?”

She at least has the decency to look apologetic _and_ afraid. “Sorry, Ben. I think I want to practice by myself today.”

.

“Focus, Number Six,” Reginald’s voice booms over the loudspeaker, Ben standing alone in the center of an empty room. The only thing to give him company is the small platform he stands on, and whatever Pogo sometimes releases through the door for the creature to kill. “Soon the Umbrella Academy will be revealing itself to the world, and you and your siblings will shoulder this responsibility. Your powers are linked to your emotions, and you must learn to control them. You must be unyielding. The creature must respect you if you ever hope to control it.”

 _I know_ , Ben thinks sourly. It’s not like he hasn’t received the same lecture every week for the past four years.

Today, he’s hooked up to a series of wires that trail the side of the room and beyond, undoubtedly hooked up to some monitors that Reginald and Pogo are hunched over. Ben rolls his shoulder back, nervous. The skin underneath one of the leads is itchy, but he doesn’t dare reach for it. He’s already thinking about what his punishment will be when he can’t contain the creature. When they drag out temptation for it, dangling it in front of them like their favorite dessert, and he can’t help but indulge it.

Reginald keeps telling him his emotions need to be like a brick wall, strong and secure so that the creature can’t get past it unless he allows it to. Ben doesn’t know what more he can do. He trains daily, attempting breath control and distancing himself from extreme emotions. He walks around like a tense wire, shoulders high and rigid, lest he make a sudden move and the creature moves with him. The other day, Allison had taken one look at him and told him he needed a massage. Ben can’t think of a single thing that’s a worse idea than to let him fully relax around other people.

“We will begin with a simple meditation,” Reginald’s voice dictates. “Sit and begin.”

Ben kneels down, bending until he assumes a cross-legged position on the platform. It’s easier to meditate in this room, the walls grey and void of any other furniture. It’s nearly impossible in his room, or anywhere else in the rest of the Academy; Five will blink in without so much as announcing himself, and Klaus is just as bad, opening closed doors and speaking as though he’s already halfway through the conversation. Diego usually knocks, but a few times he’s picked the lock when Ben didn’t answer the door. It takes all of his focus not to let the creature’s emotions influence him, then. Sitting in the silence is much easier. He counts his breaths on the exhale, letting the adjacent emotions float through his body – he can acknowledge them, and let them go.

He and the creature can coexist like this, he thinks; if he feels nothing at all, and doesn’t let its emotions overwhelm him. He breathes out softly through his mouth. It’s like what he imagines the ocean to be like: a conscious ebb and flow, a give and take between forces. He feels something stir in his gut.

 _You’re here_ , Ben thinks, and then lets it go.

One moment, he’s sinking into a peaceful lull, and the next he’s arching forward with the shocking pain ricocheting through his body. The creature _slams_ against his abdomen, and Ben lets out a short shout of pain.

“Control it, Number Six,” Reginald’s voice commands. “You must be able to choose to contain it, even when you are distressed or hurt. Focus.”

Ben takes a deep breath, filtering the exhale down through his toes. His face twitches, but he makes himself keep it still. Everything settles in his stomach. He tilts his head to the side, stretching his neck, and then repositions, hands pooled on his lap.

The second shock is worse than the first. Probably because he was tense despite his best efforts, expecting it, but he can swear that they turn up the dial on whatever machine they’re using. Ben hisses, his breath escaping him between clenched teeth. His hands move to his stomach, palms flat against his uniform, and he struggles to regain his repose. The creature is filled with fury, churning under his skin. The waves of anger pulse through him, hot and unbearable. Beads of sweat begin to build in his hairline, trailing down his forehead.

He forces out a breath, focusing his energy on the spot inside of him he imagines the creature emerges from. He takes everything he’s feeling and pushes it there, pushes back against the way it writhes and upsets. He has to. He takes another breath, clenching his eyes shut and pretending he’s not dizzy. He has to control it. He _has_ to.

His finger jumps on its own accord, tapping down on his leg like a discordant metronome. Ben tries to follow the rhythm, to make it make sense –

The third shock tears its way through him, jolting his limbs like he’s been struck by lightning. Ben’s head is thrown back, and the tentacles erupt out of his body with his scream.

It’s agonizing. It’s the searching and the ripping without any of the satisfaction that comes when they actually find something to tear apart. The room is bare, and the creature is angry, thrashing around and desperate to find something to hold onto. Ben hiccups through the pain, fists clenching by his side, and tries to gather his breath. The remaining sting from the shock weans away, leaving a dull throbbing, and Ben calls the creature back. He draws it back into his body, the process slower and just as painful as its emergence, and then he lies back on the floor. He pants out short breaths, his skin soaked in sweat. He tells himself to sit up, but his body doesn’t respond. His left foot twitches.

The door opens, and Ben doesn’t even turn his head to look. Reginald steps sharply toward him, stopping a few feet away from where his body lies.

“It seems as though pain is another trigger for the creature’s release,” Reginald muses, which sounds more like an admonishment than a contemplation. “You’ll have to learn to control your response to painful stimuli, Number Six. What will you do if you are injured out in a mission? If you are captured, and separated by your siblings?”

 _I’d kill them_ , Ben thinks, pressing the back of his head into the floor. He closes his eyes, feeling his chest heave. _I’d let it rip them apart_.

Silence stretches between them, the time only marked by be rapid beat of his heart and the labored sounds of his breath. Eventually, Reginald lets out a short sigh of conviction, turning away from him and walking back toward the door.

“Again.”

It’s past bedtime by the time Ben leaves the room, picking up lead-filled feet and trudging up the stairs. No one accompanies him anymore – when he first started training, sometimes Grace would have to carry him back to his room, or sometimes Pogo would escort him with a comforting hand on his back. He’s alone now. Spasms rock through various parts of his limbs, making him clench his jaw. His body is exhausted, but he doesn’t want to be alone. The house is utterly silent around him. It makes him feel like if he cried, it would shake the foundation apart.

Ben pauses on the way back toward his room, leaning heavily on the wood paneling of the wall. The faintest of sounds reaches his ears, sounding like a concert to him in the dead of the night. He finds himself turning toward Klaus’ room, where his usually locked and soundproofed door is slightly ajar.

He pushes open the door, taking short steps inside. His hands wrap around his biceps, trying to get himself to stop shivering. Klaus is standing on his bed, a lighter in one hand and a Sharpie in the other as he reaches on his tip toes to write on the wall.

“Me desculpe não posso te ajudar,” Klaus rasps, scribbling with the marker over the wallpaper. Ben squints, but he can’t make out what he’s writing.

“Klaus?” he whispers. Klaus doesn’t turn to look at him.

“Sinto muito. Eu não posso te ajudar.”

Ben sighs, stepping forward toward Klaus’ bed. Overcome with exhaustion, he turns around and slides to the floor, his back pressed against the bedframe. Klaus continues to write on the wall, repeating sentences in a language Ben doesn’t understand. Ben breathes, listening to him ramble and getting lost in the flow of the words. He perches his forearms on top of his knees, and then slowly leans his head forward to rest on his wrists. He lets out a long, shuddering breath. Klaus continues to murmur.

He’s not sure how long he sits there, eyelids at half mast, but eventually the dim light casting their shadows on the wall disappears as Klaus clicks the lighter shut. The bed creaks as he crouches down, and Ben tilts his head up to see his brother staring down at him, eyes bright.

“Hey, Bentacles,” he whispers, his smirk stretching to one side of his face. Ben ignores the nickname, enthralled in the way it seems Klaus has just noticed him for the first time. In how he manages to escape the world entirely, when Ben is trapped in it. “You wanna make a secret handshake?”

.

Existence is, and always will be, similar to a game of chess played in the Hargreeves household. Which is, beyond all comparison, vastly different than a regular game of chess; Ben supposes it’s kind of like normal chess, but with more emotional manipulation, dodging random projectile pieces, and the lingering risk of something exploding. Of all the training techniques Reginald threw blindly at him, chess had been his favorite. He doesn’t think he would have ever been good enough to play in any competitions or anything, since the only opponents he has for comparison are Dad, Pogo and Five; still, he held his own against them at every turn.

He’s glad he had the training, growing up – learning to orchestrate the predictable and navigate what isn’t. It’s been very useful, being close with Klaus.

Ben loiters outside of Allison’s house, standing in front of the hydrangeas lining the windows. It’s a nice, modest home. Her life with Raymond is something that he doesn’t think he would have imagined for his sister – growing up, everything had always been about being famous, powerful, and stronger than the rest of them. Allison had always chosen glitz and glam not because she particularly enjoyed it, but because she wanted to be noticed. Looking at the home she’s made, though, Ben thinks that it fits her, somehow. Allison and Klaus both had this similar need for attention that was always really just a cover for their desire to be loved. The difference was just Allison always got it, and Klaus didn’t.

Ben sighs. His thoughts are always like that, now. Always coming back to Klaus.

He steps through the wall to the living room. They haven’t cleaned up, but Raymond had at least had the mind to shut off the overhead lights. The room is dimmed and filled with shadow, the only illumination coming from a lamp on a side table near the kitchen. The couch is ruined, stained deeply with the blood from the dead body that was laid there for hours. It’s now wrapped up poorly in the area rug, just in front of the couch on the floor. The coffee table is still on its side, legs stuck up in the air like a cry for help.

He knows if he goes upstairs, he’ll find one person asleep and the other wide awake; whether Raymond or Allison will be staring at the wall, he doesn’t know. After they had arrived, Klaus had told Allison about Five’s plan in a soft, disjointed retelling of events. Knowing that they had no way back to 2019, Allison’s face has scrunched up in pain before smoothing out in some sense of relief. Ben can relate. What was there for them in 2019, really? The echoes of their abuse, and their mistakes? What would they go back to, other than picking up the pieces from the week Vanya destroyed the world? Here, Allison had a husband who loved her, and a sense of purpose that was genuine. Here, Klaus had a roof over his head, and ate nearly every meal. Ben had more to see than the back of his brother’s head as he had his head smashed open in a nightclub, or as he choked his way through an overdose.

He steps toward the room where Klaus should be sleeping, but then stops himself. Usually he is the one to walk away, to state out loud that he needs the space. Klaus tells him to fuck off, to vanish for a while, sure, but he rarely ever means it. This time is different. There was no false, sharp anger behind Klaus’ words; he had said that he needed Ben gone in order to sleep, because he didn’t trust him to be there with him anymore.

After over a decade of them against the world, Ben realizes how much that hurts him.

He tries to feel his body as he stands in the middle of the living room, listening to the stark silence of the dark and the restless whistle of the trees outside. The light in the kitchen makes the space feel separate from reality, timeless and liminal in the way some things feel in the middle of the night. It’s the way Ben feels nearly all of the time now, his entire existence some sort of philosophical quandary he could have read about in one of his books.

It’s infuriating, being a ghost. It’s even more so when you still have half of your mind to yourself – can pretend for a minute that maybe you’re still alive just to be reminded again and again and again and again. Ben hitches breath that he doesn’t have, a surge of emotion flooding him and making his knees bend in response. It comes from his throat this time, not his chest – these feelings are all his own. He can’t tell if the frustration, the _anger_ is from being a ghost for so long now, or. Klaus looks at him, sometimes, like he looks at all the other specters, like he’s just some lost, rageful _thing_ that he’s afraid of, and it makes Ben even angrier still. It’s better than the alternative, though. It’s better than facing the possibility that the anger and the bloodlust that was a constant intrusion into his mind and body in his life carried over into death, because maybe it wasn’t the creature that had made him this way. Maybe it was all just him.

Ben has been hiding from it, but he knows it know. He wasted his life. He had been afraid of his powers, terrified to lose control, and he did anyway. He had lived his life lying in wait of inevitability, growing more morose and miserable until he’s convinced his family, with all of their grief, breathed a sigh of relief when he was gone. He chides Klaus for throwing his life away, for doing the things he never would have done, when he really is just regretful. In the heat of their mischief, in the moments of chaos, Ben has fun. He feels nearly alive. He doesn’t think he remembers a single moment he felt like that with a physical body, except for before the creature came, and when he possessed Klaus.

He's jealous of Klaus. Often it’s not disappointment or anger he feels when he looks at him, but bright, burning envy.

His feet move without him realizing, drawn to Klaus like holds some sort of answer. Even when he’s passed out fully clothed on someone else’s guest bed spread, thrashing around in a nightmare, Ben is jealous. Sure, he could move on to the great unknown, leave everyone and everything behind, and maybe these feelings would stop. But they could also get worse. God, what if it was worse?

“No,” Klaus’s face is crunched up, jaw tense and rigid as his hands twitch in disturbed sleep. Ben sighs. He’ll wake up with a headache, now. “No, fuck. _Fuck_. I’m sorry. Tôi xin lỗi, tôi không thể giúp bạn. I’m sorry.”

Ben lowers himself into the chair in the window. He knows that Klaus doesn’t want him here, doesn’t want him to watch him sleep, but he just needs a minute. He’ll go, just before Klaus wakes up, and he’ll apologize later. Klaus murmurs again, and then seems to find a moment of quiet and stills. It had been confusing at first, listening to him carry on disjointed conversations as he slept, but now he’s used to it. Klaus wavers between sleep and wakefulness in the same way he threads the line between the living and the dead. It’s a miracle for him to get any rest at all.

Tears are sliding down the ridge of his nose before he’s processed that he’s crying. Ben sniffs, resisting the urge to rub at his nose. He doesn’t want to be disappointed when he doesn’t feel anything there. He tries to be quiet, as to not wake Klaus, but otherwise lets the tear track their way down his face. They linger at the ridge of his chin and then drop into the air, disappearing before they reach the carpet. Ben licks his lips, but he doesn’t taste anything. Not even salt.

“I’m sorry,” he echoes, his voice barely a whisper. Klaus’ body is still, his face turned away from him. Ben’s shoulder’s hitch, remembering all the times he looked down at Klaus’ body sprawled motionless in some alleyway, on someone’s dirty floor, in a locked stall in a restroom. The panic of being alone, really alone. Klaus was the one person who knew the intricacies of death long before Ben ever did.

When he’d possessed Klaus, he’d been playing the chess game the way Reginald had taught him. Ben didn’t want to be that person anymore.

He sniffs again, rubbing at his chest, when he sees the sheets on the bed move slightly. He stops immediately, looking up with dread crowding his throat.

“Can you shut up?” Klaus’ voice floats lazily across the room, his body not turning over. “I get it, you’re sorry, whatever. I’ll forgive you in the morning, asshole. Let me sleep.”

Ben nods, even though Klaus’ isn’t looking. When his breaths even out again, drifting back into a semblance of rest, Ben stands. He looks down at Klaus, and then turns and goes back to the living room.

.

They’re in the field again. The foxtail quivers in the wind beyond him. He watches it move as he feels the hair on his arms shift and prickle. It’s like all the background noise has been pulled from the atmosphere, leaving only the sound of his ragged breathing and the soft whistle of the wind. Far away, a bird returns to the spot, landing lightly on a stone. Beyond that, another lands on top of one of the dead carcasses. Ben tries to smell the blood. There’s so much of it, he should be able to smell it. He can remember what it smells like, but that’s not quite the same. He thinks, distantly, he might miss it.

“Number Six,” Reginald’s voice orders, sounding as though he’s right by his ear and miles away. The world echoes with it, the grass and the sky and the birds. “Again.”

Ben hears himself speak. “Yes, sir.”

.

The back of Ben’s head hits the mat again, making his breath pulse sharply out of his nose. Diego stares at him, a sharp smirk staining his features to match the pointed angles of his knuckles. His hands are curled into loose fists, and he bounces back and forth on his toes like a boxer. Ben stifles a groan in his chest. Diego is many things, one of them kind, but he’s never been apologetic about beating any of them in sparing.

“Number Six,” Reginald barks. “Get up.”

His own fingers clench and unclench in frustration, but he accepts Diego’s outstretched hand and lets himself be pulled up into a standing position. Diego claps his hands on either side of Ben’s shoulders and leads the way off the sparing mat, unable to hide his good mood. Ben thinks his must be darkening the whole room.

“Number Six,” Reginald repeats darkly, and Ben stops his retreat to look his father in the eye. “You are not finished yet. You will spar Number Three next.”

He barely holds in his sigh. He sees Klaus shrug at him from behind Reginald’s back, while Five is gritting his teeth in frustration. Allison steps forward with a bounce to her gait. She flashes him a smile, completely out of touch with his energy.

Then again, Diego tells him that he couldn’t look angry even if he tried. At thirteen, his cheeks are still chubbier than everyone else’s, and his face is better suited to kindness than anger. Every attempt to be outwardly grumpy just comes off as being blank.

“Begin,” Reginald orders, and immediately Ben has to dodge Allison’s leg as it swings upward towards him in a crescent. Reginald doesn’t always come to supervise their training sessions, often having better things to do, apparently. He’s here today though, and this is the third sparring match he’s put Ben through. He stares at him with a telltale scrutinizing air as he continues to dodge Allison’s blows.

“Number Six, you will have to strike back eventually.”

Allison quirks an eyebrow at him mid-punch, and she lands a hit on the front of his chest. She quickly follows up with a swing toward his head, and he only evades it enough for her fist to scuff off of his ear. At least Dad hasn’t made him fight Luther yet. He never pulls his punches when Dad is there to watch. Ben lands a half-hearted jab at Allison’s stomach, and just watches as her lips twitch. She side-steps, bringing one leg in front of the other, and then suddenly she’s pulling his leg back with her own and he’s on the ground again.

Luther cheers for her as he crashes to the ground. Ben probes the inside of his cheek with his tongue, finding the spot his teeth bit into when he landed. It’s a minimal amount of blood, and he doesn’t want anyone to see, so he just swallows it.

Allison runs off of the mat, not even helping him up. The only face he rises to meet is his father’s.

“Disappointing, Number Six,” he states clearly. “Tomorrow I expect you to be more engaged. Do I make myself clear?”

Ben has at least a dozen wars warring inside of himself at any given time, and only one of them resides in his chest. He blinks up at Reginald, weighing everything, and then nods.

Klaus tries to nudge him with his elbow when he’s back in line, watching Five and Luther spar, but Ben doesn’t acknowledge it. Klaus will only make some joke about how they’re just both the worst fighters of the bunch, and Ben doesn’t really want to hear it.

After they’re dismissed, they all clamber up the stairs to shower and get changed before dinner. Ben hangs around the back of the pack, meeting Reginald’s knowing gaze once more before following his siblings to the second floor. He goes to his room to grab his towel and uniform, waiting to hear the shower streams all turn on before exiting again.

One minute he’s alone, and the next Five appears right behind him. Ben has outgrown verbally startling every time Five teleports, used to the constant blinking now, but he does still slam his elbow against the paneling on the wall.

“What was that today?” Five demands. Down the hall, they hear Klaus begin to sing in the shower. Luther yells at him to shut up. “You barely even raised a finger.”

“Off my game today,” Ben lies easily, but Five scrunches up his face in disgust. He hates when they lie to him, always instead opting for omission or brutal honesty.

“That wasn’t off your game,” Five spits. “That was your game not even existing on this continent. Why are you trying to piss Dad off?”

“I’m not.” Ben frowns.

“Well, then you’re doing a really shitty job _not_ doing it,” Five huffs. “I don’t get it. We’ve all seen you on missions, and even in simulations. You always pull your punches. I don’t pull my punches. _Luther_ doesn’t pull his punches.”

Something stirs inside of him, and he tries to turn away. “You don’t understand.”

“Then make me.” Five reaches out to grab at his wrist. “Because you’re pissing Dad off, and that’s pissing Luther off, which pisses _me_ off. I know you can fight better than that. Dad does, too. You could be Dad’s goddamn favorite if you tried.”

“So what?” Ben asks dryly. Five narrows his eyes at him.

“Dad likes Luther because he’s strong,” Five explains. “And he likes me because I’m smart. But he spends the most time with _you_ , and it’s annoying, because you don’t even _want_ it. With your powers? You could leave us all in the dust if you wanted.”

Ben feels his emotions bubbling up inside of him, threatening to spill over. He wants to explode. He wants to yell about how he can’t ever fight at full capacity with his family around, because if he actually fights, _really_ fights, he could – would – kill them all with the blink of an eye. He wants to scream that no one else in this family has to walk around with the emotional equivalent of a dresser pressed against a trembling door inside their brain. He pulls his punches because he has to. He stuffs it all down because he has to.

“You said it yourself,” Ben says, his voice still calm. “I don’t want it. I don’t get to lift up cars or get whatever I want just by speaking it into existence. I don’t want my powers, and I don’t want to be a superhero.”

Five blinks, grinding his teeth. Ben can see his frustration in his eyes – the growing disconnect and misunderstanding, Five’s never-ending thirst for more knowledge and the jealousy that rots underneath his skin. Five wants to have the time and the room to explore his powers until the ends of the earth. He wants more time with Dad, like Ben has – and Ben thinks it’s the stupidest thing Five’s ever wanted.

The growl that comes out of Five’s throat is ragged and bitter. “Tough shit.”

Ben yanks his wrist out of Five’s grip, and his voice finds a rare cruelty. “Do me a favor, Five. Stay out of my business and leave me alone.”

Five stares at him, nostrils flared in anger. Ben turns from him, ignoring the conflicting feelings of fear and satisfaction, and marches to the bathroom. He knows that this is a kind of break, for them; he and Five have always been close, but Five’s growing ambition is pulling in an opposite direction of Ben’s attempts to keep himself contained. Maybe this will be good. Maybe some space will be helpful for a while.

Three weeks later Five disappears in the middle of dinner. Ben finds himself wandering the hallways, biting the inside of his cheek.

.

“ _Wait_!” Ben yells. “Klaus, wait up!”

Ben nearly checks his hip on the corner of the building as he rounds it, skidding across the sidewalk as he books it after his brother. Klaus sprints for another block, glancing periodically behind him with a manic grin spread across his face. Puddles splash under his feet, the recent rain coating the pavement in a dark, beautiful sheen. Ben shouts after him, tripping over his own feet, but Klaus doesn’t stop. Finally, he turns abruptly into an alleyway, pressing his back against the cool brick and bringing his shaking hands to his chest. Ben stumbles a few steps past him before righting himself, tucking himself into the shadows. The darkness moves with them, ebbing and flowing with Klaus’ growing smile.

Ben matches Klaus’ labored breaths, if only for sympathy. “I can’t believe you got it.”

Klaus grins at him, wide and offset. His real smile always spreads more to his right side. “Ye of little faith, Benerino. Of course I fucking got it.”

He pushes his hands even tighter into his chest, arms cradling the entire PS3 console against his shaking body. It’s bulkier in Klaus’ arms than it looked on the floor, but that may just be Klaus being smaller with something fixed to compare him to. One controller is still attached to it by a lone cord, still swinging gently in the air and nudging against Klaus’ thigh. The mad dash from the dude’s house Klaus had been crashing in has left him breathless. Ben looks him up and down, the bruises in the cricks of his elbows and his blown pupils filling the space of his eyes.

“You better keep moving,” Ben advises, nodding at the console. “That guy seemed pretty mad when he saw you running. You didn’t even save his game.”

“That was a dick move, wasn’t it? Anyway. Pete’ll never catch up to us,” Klaus’ hands are full, so he awkwardly gestures with his shoulder instead. “He’s way too stoned.”

Ben rolls his eyes. “You’re _wrecked_.”

“Yeah, but I’m speedy. Dear old Dad must have missed a superpower, because I fucking run like the _wind_.”

Then they’re both bent over, raking out harsh bursts of laughter that carry across the alleyways and out onto the streets. Ben thinks about Klaus unplugging the console, how he could practically feel a hurried heartbeat pang against his chest as Klaus toppled his way out of an open ground floor window and galloped away. The look on the guy’s face when he’d come out of the bathroom in time to see Klaus’ bottom roll over the windowsill. He snorts on his own laughter, causing Klaus to cackle and nearly drop the console on the asphalt.

“Stop,” Klaus wheezes. “What was that? What the hell was that?”

“I’m laughing, asshole,” Ben spits, still chuckling to himself.

“I’ve never heard you make that noise before in my life,” Klaus attests. “I demand I hear it every day from now on, forever. Finally start paying ghost rent around here.”

“Yeah, with all of my ghost money I have. To add to all of _your_ money.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Klaus shakes his curls out of his face. “I don’t need to pay rent, I’m way too pretty. You on the other hand…”

Ben snorts again, a harsh deliberate sound in his throat, and Klaus lets out a delighted scream. Ben smiles. The past month has been pretty touch and go with Klaus all things considered, with him ricocheting between wanting Ben around and ignoring him entirely. They haven’t joked around like this in a long time. Ben doesn’t want the night to end. He hasn’t laughed this hard in…well.

“Let’s go see if we can drum up some poor schmuck to house us for the night,” Klaus waggles his eyebrows, straightening up. Ben mimics his movements, eager to continue the lighthearted vibe. Klaus gives him a look, like he knows what he’s doing, but continues on as though he’s oblivious. “I bet Donny’s still around, he’s always had a soft spot for me. I’ll even let you plug this in and get a go before I pawn it tomorrow. Ghostie’s choice.”

“You’ll press the buttons for me?” Ben asks, and Klaus nods. They make their way out of the alley, Ben checking around for anyone who might show up to ruin the moment. “Can we play Uncharted?”

“I may have exaggerated,” Klaus bares his teeth in a wide, apologetic smile. It’s not his genuine smile, but Ben still drinks it in. “I only stole one game, so it’s LittleBigPlanet or nothing.”

.

It’s six in the morning when Luther knocks on his door. Ben lowers his book onto his lap, already knowing who it is before even turning around. Luther is the only one of them that wakes up as early as he does, up and working at the turn of dawn. Diego and Klaus are more night owls, and Allison makes a habit of only waking up with precisely enough time to be punctual. He doesn’t know when Vanya wakes, because she never makes any noise. She shows up at breakfast, though, just like the rest of them.

Ben assents to the door being opened and then turns back to his book, not looking up at Luther as he steps inside. He’s dressed in his mission uniform in all but his domino mask; yesterday Reginald’s intel had informed them that there could be an upcoming mission any minute, so they should be ready. Luther is always ready.

“Good morning,” Ben greets him, flipping the page. Luther doesn’t immediately respond, so Ben looks up at him, meeting his eye.

“Morning,” Luther says. He looks like he’s swallowed a lemon whole. “Good book?”

“It’s fine. A bit dry. When’s the mission?”

“The mission?” Luther follows Ben’s eyes to his uniform. “Oh. I, uh, I don’t know. No news. Best to be prepared, though.”

“Always,” Ben mutters, and then pauses. “Is there anything you needed, Luther?”

Luther shifts his weight from foot to foot. His hands go to stuff into his pockets before he realizes he has his battle uniform on. They end up hanging awkwardly at his sides.

“No, not really,” Luther admits. “I knew you’d be awake, and I. I don’t – I didn’t sleep well, last night.”

Ben blinks, unused to this from his brother. Luther usually walks around with his chest puffed up and shoulders back, the second most outwardly confident of them all, after Allison. He and Luther never clashed like Five or Diego would with him, but he can’t remember ever really having a heart to heart with him. Even though he knows it’s wrong, Ben has always held the assumption that nothing bad ever really happened to Luther. Everything seemed to deflect off of him, scattering into the periphery.

“Do you want to sit?” Ben offers, gesturing to his bed. “Hang out until breakfast?”

Luther shoots him a quick smile, nodding and moving to sit down on the firm mattress. He looks down at his feet, and then peers at the books stacked up on Ben’s side table. He looks like he’s going to reach out for one, but then seems to think better of it, hands pooled in his lap.

“I usually do a workout right now,” he says aimlessly. “I guess, I don’t know. Feeling keyed up, I suppose. Maybe the mission.”

“Did something happen?” Ben asks, pivoting toward him.

Luther’s face flickers. “Not really. It’s stupid.”

“I know I’m not Allison, but you can tell me.” Ben’s attempt at a joke falls flat, Luther’s face falling even further. Luther rubs at his forehead with the back of his wrist.

“Do the others talk to you? About leaving, I mean?”

They’re halfway between their sixteenth and seventeenth birthdays. Ben thinks it would be weird if they all weren’t talking about leaving. Diego and Klaus talk about it separately or together, Diego more often and more overtly. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had a calendar hidden in his room, counting down the days until they turn eighteen. Klaus whispers about it with him like they’re hatching a secret plan, and Ben nods and listens. He mostly indulges in the conversation because he thinks that otherwise, Klaus might just up and disappear in the middle of the night far before they reach their milestone of adulthood.

“Yeah, they do,” Ben says, and Luther frowns, his eyebrows pinching together. “I can understand it, though. It’s only natural.”

“I _can’t_ understand it,” Luther exclaims helplessly. “How can they think about leaving us – the Academy? We still have jobs to do. We still have to help people. You can’t just turn that away.”

Ben takes a calculated breath. “I think people like Diego, you know, they don’t want to be told what their life is supposed to look like. They feel like they need to figure it out on their own.”

Luther looks at him, face dark. “And the rest of them?”

“They have their own reasons.”

Luther huffs out a breath through his nose. “All Allison can do recently is look through magazines and talk about Hollywood. Ever since that interview she did last month because she’s the only girl – why does she feel like she has to go and be an actress or something? Isn’t being a superhero enough?”

Ben hears all the questions Luther isn’t asking and hopes that he isn’t hearing the answers he isn’t providing. Ben’s never been as enthusiastic about their job as Luther, but he’s also never really spoken out against it. For him, it feels more like an inevitability than anything – but he thinks that if he was like the others, he’d want to leave, too. Even just thinking about the endless _what-ifs_ makes his mind stormy, and Ben clenches the book in his hands as a distraction.

Luther lets out a shuddering breath, shoulders slumped. “I guess it just. It makes me feel like a bad Number One, I suppose. Am I not doing a good enough job? Do you all not trust me?”

Ben loosens his grip on the hardcover, pulling his lips to one side. He feels out of his comfort zone. He’s used to comforting Klaus, or Vanya, but Luther doesn’t usually _do_ morose.

“I trust you,” he says softly, and Luther looks at him with wide eyes. “And everyone else does, too. Even if they don’t like it. You can’t control what they do with their lives, and they may not stay here forever. Maybe none of us will. But everyone’s still here, right now. And you’ve got me – I’m not going anywhere.”

Luther’s eyes are watery, although he’s sure no tears will fall. Luther nods, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Thanks, Ben. You always know what to say.”

Ben doesn’t really ever say much of anything at all without prompting, but he takes the compliment where he can. It beats the comments he’s been getting from the rest of his siblings lately, anyway. Last night Klaus had looked at him, high off of whatever he’d gotten off some random guy at a party and yelled about how Ben was incapable of having fun anymore. To his point, the last time Ben can truly remember having fun was when they were eleven and playing games out in the courtyard, before the Umbrella Academy went public for the first time the following year. It’s like with each mission they go on, the creature in his chest gets heavier and heavier, until he feels like he’s trying to swim with weights strapped to his back.

They sit in silence for a little while longer, until they stand together and walk down to breakfast. Diego takes one look at Luther already donned in his battle uniform and scoffs deeply.

“Already up and raring to go.” He smirks. “How many people we killing today, big guy?”

Luther pauses in pouring out his cereal, blinking his eyes back and forth between Diego and Ben. “Dad hasn’t called the mission yet. No one.”

 _Yet_.

Years later, Ben watches his siblings from behind Klaus’ shoulder, and thinks of all the things he wants to say. There was so much he didn’t say when he was alive, opting instead for keeping the peace, and now he feels like he saved his breath for nothing. After everything, he’d still held onto an expectation for the rest of them. Still somehow thought they’d be the better people he thought they were when they were teenagers. He vouches for Luther’s character after he hurts Klaus. He convinces Klaus that Luther is worth following, worth protecting, but then Klaus _dies_ , or un-dies, or whatever, and Ben is left fuming. He can’t make sense of it. Luther is a good man. Luther is misguided, and naïve, and believed every word their dad said, but he cared for all of them. He shouldn’t have left Klaus there to die, but he did. Ben’s sure he’s not even fully aware it happened.

He’s used to holding everything inside of him, but he fantasizes about letting it all out. Yelling at Luther for how he treated Klaus and Vanya, at Five for disappearing and not coming back sooner. Telling off Diego for being self-righteous, and Allison for being so selfish. He thinks about saying all the things Klaus doesn’t say, too, because while Klaus is all sleight of hand where Ben is evasion, they both make a habit of not telling the whole truth.

He practices what he would say over and over in his head, listening to their conversations and compiling two lifetimes of evidences. He imagines punching Luther across the face, thinks maybe it’ll be a bit like striking his father, too. Revels in the shock it will be to them all, to see him again for the first time in thirteen years just for him to set them straight. He’s sick of just watching the deluge of miscommunication. They don’t know what it’s like to not be able to communicate at all.

He waits for his opportunity, the fantasy blooming into a full-fledged plan once he and Klaus discover they can make him corporeal. He builds and builds in his anger, and his resentment, and all the things he’s never gotten the chance to say.

But then he’s standing in front of them all, emanating blue and power and half-life, and he freezes. The fight drains out of him like it was never there. He looks around at the room, realizing how much he missed them all, and thinks he could be a coward for one more day. He looks at Klaus, face open in questioning, and then to his family, eyes steeped in wonder, and he doesn’t say anything at all.

.

The house is nearly empty. Vanya stopped following them on all of their missions some time ago – now, she typically stays at home and plays her violin as loudly as she possibly can, sometimes out of anger, sometimes to muffle her broken breaths. Even that is missing. The quiet echo of Grace’s humming trails down the halls from the kitchen. It is too small a sound to fill so big a house.

Ben shivers. Everything feels very empty and very cold, as though he is a delicate pile of snow accumulated on a thin bannister. He keeps expecting to hear someone breathe, and to be swept away with it. He hears something dripping onto the floor, a steady beat of minute discordance. He turns to see what is making the noise but can’t find anything. The house is too quiet. It’s like the sound is coming from nowhere.

Klaus waltzes down the length of the hallway, a lit joint cradled between his bony fingers. He has bulky, knee-high socks on that muffle the sound of his steps. In his other hand he has an orange bottle clutched under white knuckles. Ben feels a ripple of disappointment roll through him. He doesn’t know where Klaus gets his drugs from – he’ll never take him with him, and he’ll never give him a straight answer – but it’s concerning that instead of plateauing, Klaus seems to be diving deeper and deeper into harder drugs. They’ve all tried, in their own ways, to dissuade him, but after Five disappeared it was a downhill slope. In their father’s eyes, a lost cause.

He doesn’t even go on their missions anymore. Luther says he’d never do it, but Ben lives in fear of the day Reginald kicks Klaus out on the street for not being of any use anymore. He lives in greater fear that Klaus might welcome it.

The dripping sound grows in frequency, becoming a disturbing, heavy sound. Klaus pauses in front of the door to the parlor, the hand holding the joint suspended in midair. Ben steps forward, then, toward him, and Klaus freezes. His eyes are trained on the floor, like he doesn’t want to really look at him, but Ben is filled with the _need_ for Klaus to see him.

“Klaus,” he says, voice a sore croak, and Klaus’ eyes snap up to meet his. Ben swears all of the blood flushes out of Klaus’ already pale face. Klaus looks at the bottle clenched in his hand, eyebrows furrowing in a moment of confused panic, before he shakes his head and turns away from Ben. He hurries up the stairs the best that he can, singing some random song under his breath. It’s horribly off key, enough that usually Ben would roll his eyes and walk away, but he follows him instead.

Klaus crawls onto his bed, cramming himself into the corner and alternating between singing his song and violently shaking his head in short bursts. Ben stands and stares at him for some time. The door is closed. The dripping continues.

“Klaus,” he tries again, unable to say much of anything else. There’s nothing else to say. Klaus has to look at him first. “Klaus, look at me.”

Klaus doesn’t respond. He’s switched to muttering, soft words that Ben can’t make out, his arms wrapped around to cradle his knees. He doesn’t know where the joint or the pills went. The window is refracting a different kind of light than when they came in, the lowering sun casting a ray that illuminates Klaus’ entire frame. Ben stares at Klaus’ shadow, cast starkly against the far wall. He has no shadow. Klaus doesn’t look at him at all.

The front door opens and slams, the surrounding din suddenly filled with panicked shouts and the stomping of boots. He hears Diego yell. The door next to them opens, Vanya’s small feet carrying her down the hall to the top of the stairs. She asks what’s wrong, quietly, and then lets out a soft sob.

Ben steps toward Klaus. His hands are clamped over his ears now, his body rocking softly back and forth with his eyes locked on the window. The light must be blinding him.

“Klaus,” he says. He reaches out for his brother, and it’s only then that he sees the blood, sees the puddle beneath him spreading across the floor. He reaches out for his brother. Klaus turns his head to look at him, and he _screams_.

.

“Imagine the ocean,” Pogo says. The bed creaks beneath him as he lowers himself down, his hand resting on Six’s shoulder. He takes calm, measured breaths, exaggerating the in and out for Six to hear. Six curls over his stomach, arms crossed tightly and exhales keening as he forces them out of his clenched throat. It hurts more than anything. It hurts more than dying. “Picture the tide coming in over the sand, and out toward the horizon. Picture the wind on your face. In and out.”

Six sobs, squirming. It rumbles inside of him, aching for release. He doesn’t know how Pogo can risk being in here with him. “I _can’t_.”

“Do not let pain be the only thing you feel and see,” Pogo says calmly. “Or else it will consume you. Make room for one more thing, and then let it grow.”

All Six can feel is the hurt and the anger. If only everyone could get through one day without fighting. If Three could get through a single day without using her power or being so _mean_. Two had called his name as he’d run away, but he hadn’t followed him.

Pogo rubs his shoulder deftly with the heel of his hand. “The ocean is a constant thing, Number Six. If you can return to it, you can return to yourself. Picture the tide, now.”

Six purses his lips and lets his breath hiss out of his mouth. He’s never been to the ocean, but he’s seen clips and pictures. He thinks about what it would sound like, for the waves to crash and roll up onto the shore before sliding back. He plays the sound in his head, over and over, until Pogo’s grip on his shoulder is gentle, and the creature slides back away.

.

He lingers in the doorframe, in the morning. He can hear Allison and Raymond upstairs, talking in soft, cautious tones. Ben doesn’t know why they’re being so quiet. It’s after nine in the morning, and the rest of the world (except for maybe Klaus) is awake. The briefcase Five had gotten his hands on is gone, and today is the day that the world ends for the second time. First time. Whatever.

Maybe it’s a quiet mourning, Ben ponders. A grieving for another Apocalypse he doesn’t really understand.

Five always loved to talk in pointed riddles, when they were kids. Wrapping his way around complex words but delivering them with a bluntness meant to make them feel stupid. Having seen him yesterday, wrung out and distraught, Ben doesn’t think he’s doing that, anymore. He didn’t get to interact with Five during their first stint with the end of the world, but he’d changed. Fundamental aspects of him were the same, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t been able to recognize his brother. They had been too close for that.

He’d been upset, but so had Klaus. Five had left, and he’d followed Klaus.

Ben tries to ignore the strange itch under skin he doesn’t have. He doesn’t have a body, but he remembers hugging Diego. Running down the street.

Allison says something, shifts and the floor creaks above Ben’s head. He wants to talk to his family.

Klaus opens the door to the bedroom and nearly walks through him, yawning and rubbing his forearm over his eyes. Ben stumbles out of the way on instinct; the last three years in the sixties has left them with the ratio of Klaus actually hitting him instead of passing through him being about 50-50. Klaus makes a startled, sleepy noise, but keeps moving toward the kitchen, his heels scuffing on the floor. He’s wearing the same clothes from yesterday, having never changed out of them in the first place. Somehow, the shirt is still crisp and fresh on Klaus’ skin. Usually he tosses and turns in his sleep, crumpling up whatever fabric he’s tangled up in, but it seems like he didn’t move much during the night. Maybe the possession had taken a lot out of him.

A small ripple of guilt runs through Ben’s chest. Klaus eyes him from his stance in front of the fridge, as though he can tell.

“What do you think?” he asks, voice calm and void of any of the tension that ran through it the night before. “Bets, before I open it. Is Allison more of an eggs or a yogurt girl?”

Ben blinks, and then follows him. He leans against the fridge, next to the back door. He weighs his words in his mouth before he speaks. “I don’t think yogurt is really in style yet.”

“And here I was hoping for a fresh and hip avocado toast,” Klaus laments, pulling open the door of the fridge. “Ah, eggs. You owe me ten dollars.”

Ben feels his eyes trace Klaus’ movements more than he consciously does it. He watches him set the egg carton down on the counter before turning back to rummage around inside the drawers.

He takes a measured breath, trying and failing to feel the held inhale spread his ribcage. “Klaus.”

“I don’t think she has a single vegetable in here,” Klaus muses. “I get she’s busy and all, but she’s seriously lacking in her nutrients, here. Come on, now. Where’s the five a day?”

“Klaus,” Ben repeats, and Klaus pokes his head out of the fridge to look at him. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” Klaus closes the fridge and plucks a pan out of the drying rack. He twirls it in his hands and sets it down on the stove like he hasn’t had someone else make his meals for the majority of his life. Klaus’ culinary prowess begins and ends with noodles and toast. His taste, on the other hand, fluctuates between apathetic and refined – Ben has seen him eat filet mignon and dry ramen with the same gusto. “Had a dazzling conversation last night, I thought.”

“That wasn’t a conversation,” Ben mutters, already frustrated. “It’s just. You were right, to have me leave you alone, after yesterday. I didn’t really think it through, and it was a lot, and with Five –”

“Look,” Klaus waves a hand through the air. “You don’t have to get sappy with me, Benthony, I know you didn’t mean to. We all get a little overeager about our first times.”

“What are you saying?” Ben asks, crossing his arms.

“I’m _saying_ that you don’t need to cry, or grovel, or anything. We don’t need to talk about it. I’m over it.”

“I don’t know, I think maybe we do,” Ben presses. Klaus frowns and turns to the pan, flicking the burner on. “Because I get that the easy thing would be to just brush past what happened, and usually we’d just do that and go back to whatever we had before, but I don’t think I want to do that this time.”

“This time,” Klaus echoes, muttering. “Yeah, and what do we have to go back to?”

“Destiny’s Children, I guess,” Ben shrugs. “San Francisco?”

“See, the thing is, though,” Klaus cracks an egg into the pan. A shard of shell drops in with it, and Klaus makes a couple aborted movements with his hand to try to remove it before he gives up. “I’m not going back. I don’t want to go back. And I’m not so sure you want to, either.”

Ben regards him, tucking his arms further into himself. “You’re right. I don’t.”

“So, what do we do now?” Klaus asks, not looking at him. He cracks a second egg into the pan, this one more successful than the first. “Five’s briefcase went kablooey, and it wasn’t like he was forthcoming about that particular out to begin with. The world’s ending today, I guess. Am I supposed to spend it being pissed at you until the minute we drop dead?”

Ben blinks, his brain short-circuiting a bit. “Yes! Maybe. Fuck, Klaus. I deserve it.”

“So what?” Klaus shakes the pan a bit, which does absolutely nothing. He forgot to put oil in.

Ben hisses low in his throat, getting up from leaning against the fridge. All he can see is the back of Klaus’ head as he pokes at the eggs with a fork. He tries to make sense of the bitterness swirling around in his gut, who it’s directed toward. “You don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get?” Klaus asks. “That you made a mistake and I got mad at you, and now you’re eating guilt for breakfast? That’s not new, Ben. You have this pity party every other Thursday.”

“It’s not a pity party,” Ben growls. “You can’t even let me apologize correctly, you just let everything fly past you. The world is _ending_ today, Klaus.”

“What are we supposed to do about it?” Klaus flips one of the eggs with the fork. It folds in on itself. “And for the record, saying you’re going to apologize isn’t actually apologizing. Neither is saying it when you think I’m asleep, by the way.”

“How can you just let it go?” Ben turns, running his hands through his hair. “Last night I was defensive and angry, still, after what I did, and you were mad, and today you’re just over it. I could have really hurt you. I was so excited, I didn’t even think –”

“Yeah, you didn’t think,” Klaus grunts, scraping at the pan. It’s going to leave scratches. “And you did something selfish, and just dragged me along for the ride. Wonder where I’ve heard that one before.”

“Why are you acting like this?” Ben’s hands ache, and he wants to grab Klaus and shake him. He would, if he wasn’t afraid that nothing will happen when he tries. “Why are you just acting like you don’t care?”

Klaus rounds on him then, turning away from the stove. His face is calm but his eyes are livid, clear in a way Ben had wished to see for the years he’d spent with him on the street. When he’s sober, Klaus has a way of looking right into people. That’s why it’s all the more unnerving for everyone else when he looks at Ben.

“I care,” Klaus’ fists clench and unclench at his sides. “Newsflash, I’ve always fucking cared. I care even when I’m making bitch-ass decisions and they affect _you_. I’m still mad, and don’t do it again, but I make selfish calls on the daily. I’m the reason this is happening. I’m the reason you can’t –”

Klaus cuts himself off, shaking his head and turning back to turn the eggs. He pulls out a plate from the drying rack and dumps the eggs onto it, turning off the burner. One of the yolks ruptures on impact, oozing languidly into the white porcelain of the dish. Klaus frowns at it. He walks to the table and dumps the plate, pulling out a chair and falling into it. Upstairs, Allison and Raymond are still talking. It still doesn’t sound like an argument, but Ben has only really argued with Klaus. He wouldn’t really know.

Ben watches Klaus stab at his eggs and shove them into his mouth. They’re clearly still too hot, and he didn’t even season them, but he eats them rhythmically all the same.

“All my life,” Ben starts, looking at the floor. He pieces the patterns in the tile together, creating a mosaic. “I ruined my life, and then I died, and I ruined everyone else’s. I always thought I was making the right choice, but I wasn’t. I didn’t let anyone tell me otherwise, and I made the wrong call again, and again. I still am. I can still feel it – it wants to get out, too. What if that happened again?”

“It wouldn’t,” Klaus grumbles.

“But if it did,” Ben stresses, looking up at him. “I killed so many people, before. That’s what life was about. And yeah, I missed the good stuff, the flowers, and the hugs, but I missed the other stuff too. What does that make me?”

Klaus pauses, jaw working around his eggs. Hums. He reaches his fingers inside of his mouth and pries out the bit of stuck shell. “I guess it makes you a monster.”

Ben’s chest caves in under his arms, the shame flooding down to his feet and then flowing back up again to sting the back of his neck. His eyes feel full, and he blinks.

Klaus eyes him, and waves a hand, continuing. “And it makes me a monster, too. And Luther, and Diego, and all the rest of those losers, but especially us.”

Ben frowns, eyebrows low. Of all of them except Vanya, Klaus’ kill count was always the lowest. “But –”

“You’re looking at the resident expert at being both dead and alive,” Klaus says. “Present company excluded. But you’re also looking at the co-chair for shittiest powers in the world club. We’re co-chairs, by the way, because there’s no way I’m letting you be president. We switch off every month.”

“Klaus,” Ben shakes his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“It is, bozo,” Klaus asserts around another mouthful. “Look. It’s always been this way. Everyone else gets these powers, right, and they’re all stuff that they can do to other people. But us, I don’t know if we drew the short straw or the little girl hates you too or whatever, but our powers don’t work the same way. They happen to _us_ , not to anyone else. You think you miss killing people or being the world’s grossest antihero because that’s literally all you knew, dude. I don’t know how to break it to you, but your life kind of sucked.”

Ben looks at him, his jaw working and straining as he bites the inside of his cheek. Klaus sighs.

“It’s normal to miss the good stuff,” he says. “And talking to Diego, and the rest of them. I get it. I was a jerk for not telling them you were here. I could have figured out another way. You’re not like the other ghosts, and I cart you around everywhere, so you’re bound to want it. Next time I’ll just try to manifest you though. Consent is ongoing, okay? Geez. Sex ed 101.”

“You don’t cart me around,” Ben says. “We just…we need to work together.”

Klaus smiles at him, a tight-lipped, squinty grin with a mouth full of eggs. “Sure thing, Benji.”

Ben looks down at his hands, and then looks up again. The side of his mouth twitches in his own grin. “So. Are we good?”

“I suppose so,” Klaus breathes dramatically, flourishing his fork. “Well, I’m _good_. You’re more…adequate.”

“Does this mean we can joke about it, now?”

“Oh, Ben,” Klaus leans forward, fork coming forward to point at Ben’s face and launching some egg across the room. “I can joke about _anything_.”

Klaus wolfs down the rest of his eggs and then stands, floating into the living room and sitting on the couch just as Allison and Raymond make their way down the stairs. They all look at the dead body on the floor with a mixture of resignment and despair. Klaus pats the couch next to where he’s sitting, and Ben accepts the invitation to sit with his brother.

He’s enjoying their banter, a little bit forced but still soothing in the golden morning light filtering through the windows, when a bright blue light bursts in front of all of them. Allison and Raymond scream, dropping the body, and Diego appears out of nowhere, a small man in a suit following him with a briefcase. Diego launches into a speech, and whatever Ben was going to say next dies in his throat.

Once they establish their plans and Allison says her goodbyes, Ben follows them all out of the house and hesitates, turning back to see the lamp light still on next to the kitchen. He stares at it, taking a deep breath, until Klaus snaps at him to get in the car.

He thinks of the warmth that comes with Klaus’ normally frigid hands when he manifests him. How it felt to hold Diego in his arms. He had searched for that light, that warmth, for the entire time he’d been alive, and never found it. The source had been right there in front of him, but he had walked around like he had a live wire under his skin. He had thought if he retreated enough, he could find it inside of himself, but all he had found was something petering out.

He follows them into the car, and then follows them into the building. At the end of their days, he’ll still follow his family.

When he finally finds that light and walks through it, it’s because in the moment, he finally feels like he’s said something when he would normally stay silent. He speaks through the pain, and the panic, because it’s right. He feels like this is what he’s been waiting for, to not feel afraid. In the moment, there’s nothing more for him to do.

He rests.

.

He has this dream – he can’t dream anymore, not really, but he replays this memory over and over in his head, whenever he’s spaced out and not quite there. He and Diego are sitting in his room, fifteen and jaded, silent and reading their own respective books. It’s nice that they do this, even though Diego doesn’t love reading. Neither of them particularly love talking, and no one else seems to get it. Sometimes Klaus joins them, rolling around on the floor and telling them stories, but he’s been ditching out more and more, sneaking out of the mansion and coming back at late hours. He asks them to come with him, sometimes, but they both refuse. Diego because he disapproves of what they all know Klaus is doing; he’ll never admit it, but it’s also because he thinks that if he leaves without all of them there, he won’t come back.

Ben doesn’t admit his reasoning, either, because it’ll break Klaus’ heart – he’s never leaving the Academy. He promises him and Diego he’ll leave with them, one day, but he’s a liar. He lies to his brothers’ faces every day because he’s a coward, and he’ll never tell the truth.

Diego still calls him a goodie-two-shoes. He knows it’s only because Five isn’t here anymore, and he’s finding his rebellious streak.

“What are you reading?” Diego mutters, not even looking up from his own book. Ben turns his over, keeping his place with his thumb, and shows him the cover.

“ _Green Mile_ , huh?” Diego raises an eyebrow. “What’s with all the ghost stories, lately?”

Ben is discovering that he’s full of secrets. He speaks to everyone he loves in quiet half-truths, keeping in everything it would take to put his puzzle together. It’s better that way. He doesn’t want to see Klaus’ face when he reveals the real reason he still follows every word Dad says, and why he’ll never leave. He doesn’t want to see Diego react when he tells him why he likes horror stories. It relieves him to know that there might be people out there worse than him, that will reside in a lower circle of hell than he will when he finally dies and joins the creature wherever it lives. But more than that, it’s safe. There’s blood and gore and violence without it being caked on his skin, there’s fear and rage without him bathing in it, and he likes it. It’s an emotion he’s not used to feeling without the creature driving the way, an independent echo of a feeling. He’ll never admit it, but he likes it.

He sits in his room and reads about it, so that the world doesn’t have to see him inflict it. He’ll stay here, reading about other peoples’ lives, until the day he dies.

He passes by his father’s office later, after dinner. The door is slightly ajar, Reginald and Pogo inside listening to a press piece on the Academy’s latest public mission. A witness is sharing her perspective, talking about each of them in turn.

“Those children are heroes, saving everyone inside like they did,” she says, voice shaking. “Real heroes. But god, bless them for the powers that they have. You should see them – the one with the monster inside of his body. He tears them apart. It’s terrifying. I’m grateful to be saved, god bless me I was saved, but oh god, the horror. The horror!”

Ben stands silently and closes his eyes. Something inside him tugs at his lips, and he smiles.

.

**Author's Note:**

> haha remember when Klaus was pissed at Ben and then season 2 skipped to the morning and they were joking and friendly again? And didn't talk about the issues revolving that forced possession scene at all? Yeah me too
> 
> In this fic Klaus speaks Portuguese in one scene and Vietnamese in another. Both roughly say something like "I'm sorry, I can't help you".
> 
> All of them have their own stuffed animals in my mind, just so you know. Klaus has his unicorn. Diego's is a shark. Luther's is a dog (he names it Laika). Ben's is a seal - you know, one of the predators of octopuses (I do not accept criticism on this choice and this choice only).
> 
> If you enjoyed, please let me know with a comment! Your words mean everything to me, and it makes me want to write more for this universe! you can hang out with me on tumblr @themostexcellentfinder.


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